# Writing more books isn't ALWAYS the answer



## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

I've heard it over and over and over. The mantra: "Write more books. That's the surefire way to increase sales!"

Here's my record.

Jan 2012     6 titles       1077 sales
April 2012   7 titles         745 sales
May 2012    8 titles         383 sales
Aug 2012    9 titles         159 sales
July 2013   10 titles          90 sales
Sept 2013  11 titles          65 sales
Oct 2013   still 11 titles     42 sales  

BTW, among these titles are 2 series containing 3 books each. My average Amazon rank for the 11 titles is 383,682.

Anyone else out there experiencing this?


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

There is no magic formula.  However, it seems (and admittedly I haven't done the math) that the odds of success are greater the more you have out there.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

Rick Gualtieri said:


> There is no magic formula. However, it seems (and admittedly I haven't done the math) that the odds of success are greater the more you have out there.


That's what I told myself for the last 3 years, Rick, and you're right. It would seem so. But who was it who said, "Things are never as they seem"?


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

But exactly what did they mean by "writing more books?" Is it writing more books in the same series, or writing more serials? Or write in multiple genres to increase readership? What do they mean?


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## vrabinec (May 19, 2011)

WTF? Did you change the sites you're selling on or something?


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## WordSaladTongs (Oct 14, 2013)

There are just SO MANY variables. My experience has been the opposite of yours, but I really couldn't tell you why. Maybe genre, maybe I got the mailing list together earlier, maybe I released more frequently--who knows?

I would say, though, before saying that it definitely doesn't work, to look at what you did differently in the beginning that you stopped doing/changed. Maybe there's an answer there. Or maybe you've already done that and there isn't. 

Oh, one other thing--sometimes a readership doesn't follow an author from one series to another. I don't get total crossover among my 3 (sort of 4) series, so that could be part of it.


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

Complete series is a great and terrible thing.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Yep, same here.

I sold more last winter with two titles than I am now with six.
The titles are well-reviewed and I have a small but enthusiastic fan base. I've not changed platforms or prices.
Then again, I started when doing a freebie promo still meant a considerable boost. That's no longer the case.

I have not yet been doing this for a full year and still tell myself that it's a seasonal thing and I'll be back to last Winter's numbers by December.  Here's to hoping.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

Wow - thanks for the info :/


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## Vivi_Anna (Feb 12, 2011)

I'm in the same boat, last year I sold more with far less books, than I am now.

Have no idea why.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

JanThompson said:


> But exactly what did they mean by "writing more books?" Is it writing more books in the same series, or writing more serials? Or write in multiple genres to increase readership? What do they mean?


Jan--I've always taken that to mean, "Shovel more product out there (preferably in a series)."



vrabinec said:


> WTF? Did you change the sites you're selling on or something?


vrabinec--I was all in on Select for most of that period. I'm still on Amazon, but now on iBooks, B&N, and Kobo as well.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

The pond is growing way faster than your fish are.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Mike,
How do you promote your books? I noticed that you had about a year gap in the middle between releases, what were sales like during that period? Have you ever tried a BookBub ad? I took a quick look and saw that at least one of your books has a ton of great reviews, 60+ and is in the noir genre and higher priced, so you might be a good candidate for a .99 promotion, which could give a nice lift to all of your books.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

Cherise Kelley said:


> The pond is growing way faster than your fish are.


Precisely. I don't think it's so much a case of what you're doing/not doing, it's more to do with the amount of product available now. Jan 2012 was almost two years ago - a lot of new authors have entered the mix since then. A LOT. Actively promoting your material is likely your (and our) only recourse.


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## Avis Black (Jun 12, 2012)

Frankly, I think you've got way too many indie books/authors competing for attention in your particular writing niche.  If I were in your predicament, I'd find another niche.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

PamelaKelley said:


> Mike,
> How do you promote your books? I noticed that you had about a year gap in the middle between releases, what were sales like during that period? Have you ever tried a BookBub ad? I took a quick look and saw that at least one of your books has a ton of great reviews, 60+ and is in the noir genre and higher priced, so you might be a good candidate for a .99 promotion, which could give a nice lift to all of your books.


Pam--During the intermediate year, sales yo-yoed up and down, but trended steadily downward. A couple of months ago, I re-priced the book with 60+ reviews at 99¢ (it's the first in the series). I did a BookBub ad on it back in June, but that was a few weeks too late. The book reached #1 in the overall free store and #1 in two categories, which (I'm told) would've resulted in about 1500 sales (and quite likely would've acquired legs) had I done it in April, before Amazon tweaked their system to make it more difficult to cash in on Select. Instead, it only sold about 350 books and then died after 2 weeks. It was _never_ (and still is not) on anyone else's "also-bought" list, nor are any of my other books. That's when I pulled everything out of Select.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

justsomewriterwhowrites said:


> You seem to be in the perfect position to do a pricing experiment. You don't have much to lose if it doesn't work. Try raising your prices significantly. It will put you in front of a different type of reader. When I say significantly, I mean put your books in the 6.99 to 9.99 price range of mass market paperbacks and see what happens after a few months. I know a lot of others recommend lower prices, but I've found success on the higher end at 6.99 and I think you get a different kind of reader at those prices than you get at the lower prices. It might help. And if it doesn't, you can lower your prices again.


Is there a way to search ebooks on Amazon by price?


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

This almost exactly echoes my own experience.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

I'm thinking the 'write more books' advice probably works better when there are more than three in a series. (Depends on your genre.  For instance a lot of mystery readers like LONG series, and some say they won't even try a series that has less than six or seven books in it.  On the other hand, romances tend to be stand alone books that have to be connected more with theme and branding.)

But as everybody has said there are a lot of variables. Sometimes variables far outside of our control.  For instance, if you start in a genre that is underserved, and the audience is starving for that kind of book, you sell better; but if a flood of new writers comes in hitting the same audience (particularly if, say, a publisher suddenly releases a lot of backlist) there could be a slow down. However, I would expect that established players in the genre would hold on better than others.

There's also the maturing of the audience; early on, lots of techniques like offering free books, or advertising on certain sites, worked fabulously, but as the audience gets used to those, they stop seeing free as an opportunity, and they also start spreading out to a broader number of sites, etc.

And then, of course, there is the fact that book selling can be seasonal, and you really should be comparing Jan 12 to Jan 13, Apr 12 to Apr 13, etc.

Camille


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## MGalloway (Jun 21, 2011)

Maybe it is time to advertise in different places.

Like I said in another thread, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of places to advertise other than the major sites everybody recommends. Some options are more effective than others and some are more affordable than others.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

MGalloway said:


> Maybe it is time to advertise in different places.
> 
> Like I said in another thread, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of places to advertise other than the major sites they everybody recommends. Some options are more effective than others and some are more affordable than others.


Agreed. You just have to think outside the box.


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## Guest (Oct 18, 2013)

Looks like it's time for a genre switch.  What have you got to lose, sales?


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

I went and looked at a couple of your rankings.    It looks like your Key West series is doing a bit better than the Vegas series.    I have no clue what you should do.  It is obvious from Hard Cash that at least one reader liked your books.  Good luck is all I have for you.


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## Ardin (Nov 1, 2012)

Try a quick serial in a hot genre and see what happens.


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## SBJones (Jun 13, 2011)

Mike Dennis said:


> Pam--During the intermediate year, sales yo-yoed up and down, but trended steadily downward. A couple of months ago, I re-priced the book with 60+ reviews at 99¢ (it's the first in the series). I did a BookBub ad on it back in June, but that was a few weeks too late. The book reached #1 in the overall free store and #1 in two categories, which (I'm told) would've resulted in about 1500 sales (and quite likely would've acquired legs) had I done it in April, before Amazon tweaked their system to make it more difficult to cash in on Select. Instead, it only sold about 350 books and then died after 2 weeks. It was _never_ (and still is not) on anyone else's "also-bought" list, nor are any of my other books. That's when I pulled everything out of Select.


http://www.yasiv.com/#/Search?q=B0050642V2&category=Books&lang=US

Looks like there are four books that point back to yours right now.


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## Deke (May 18, 2013)

The Best Practice seems to be boiling down to this:

--write three books in a series
--release them in quick succession if not all at once.
--if there are sales and interest, then writer more in that series.
--if there are not growing sales or interest, then start writing three books in a different series.


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Mike Dennis said:


> I've heard it over and over and over. The mantra: "Write more books. That's the surefire way to increase sales!"
> 
> Here's my record.
> 
> ...


Just in case it got lost in my post, I'm going to ask again: since sales can be extremely seasonal, can you give us month to month comparisons, rather than giving us mostly the "hot" months for the fewer books and "slow" months for the "more books" categories?

Give us Jan 12 vs. Jan 13, Apr 12 vs Apr 13, as well as July, Sep, and Oct of 12 to compare to the same months in 13.

Camille


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

I agree. And:



Deke said:


> The Best Practice seems to be boiling down to this:
> 
> --write three *riveting* books in a series
> --release them in quick succession if not all at once.
> ...


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## lisamaliga (Oct 28, 2010)

Have you considered writing nonfiction? How about a book on poker tips? Key West/Florida travel tips? Some other topic that appeals to you. Nonfiction sells well and you can usually price it higher.


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## Willo (May 10, 2013)

Deke said:


> The Best Practice seems to be boiling down to this:
> 
> --write three books in a series
> --release them in quick succession if not all at once.
> ...


I've been writing a few series in advance of releasing, so I can make them available in quick succession (and not get side-lined with another project/losing the series feel, etc). I'll rest easier at night because they'll be done (editing aside for each release) and won't be at the back of my mind when I want to throw my focus into something else. No clue how well this will work until at least December/January, sales wise, but readers won't be left hanging if I hit any sort of delays that affect a given series before the third or fourth books are done, etc.


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

Do you have a mailing list or some other way to directly inform readers when a new book is out? More books are less likely to help if nobody knows about them.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

You know what amazes me? Here we have clear evidence that the "formula" is not a formula after all, and there is no guarantee of success in this business. Basically, that the universe as we know it is entirely uncertain. And yet, in these comments, people  still want to find some way to make the "formula" work. People keep trying to figure out why it's not working.

Here's the reason: There are no guarantees. Everything is uncertain. There's no surefire path to success.

I know that's a scary thought, and that a lot of people can't handle facing it, but it is the truth.

(And if you go with it, it can be surprisingly liberating.)

To the OP: Man, you must be pulling out your hair. I feel for you. I have gone through some insane dips myself. In fact, right now, due to a gross miscalculation of my estimated taxes, I've basically got three months until I have to get a day job--unless things change. Does this scare the crap out of me? Heck yes. Hugs, and I hope you make it through this, and that it doesn't completely screw up the joy you find in writing.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

> There are no guarantees. Everything is uncertain. There's no surefire path to success.


This is probably the hardest thing to tell writers who are trying so hard to make it, to find readers and make money. I know it's crazy-making for me.

I do believe that writing more good books, in good genres (niches are fine, but they tend to have smaller sales), ups the chances of making it. Add a generous dollop of luck, cross your fingers and hold your tongue just right, at the proper phase of the moon, and it might work.

That said, for the OP, maybe not doing whatever it is he's doing right now, and bust out of the corral. Try something new -- different genre, different length, different marketing, different pricing.


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## Lo/Roxie (May 11, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Do you have a mailing list or some other way to directly inform readers when a new book is out? More books are less likely to help if nobody knows about them.


I was going to ask the same question. I went to your site and didn't see a newsletter or mailing list sign up spot. You really need to make it easy for readers to sign up for a mailing list and like/follow you on social media. You want to KEEP and have easy access to the readers who like your books. A boost of even 100 hundred readers buying your books on released day will give you some useful visibility on Amazon, etc.


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## MT Berlyn (Mar 27, 2012)

valeriec80 said:


> You know what amazes me? Here we have clear evidence that the "formula" is not a formula after all, and there is no guarantee of success in this business. Basically, that the universe as we know it is entirely uncertain. And yet, in these comments, people still want to find some way to make the "formula" work. People keep trying to figure out why it's not working.
> 
> Here's the reason: There are no guarantees. Everything is uncertain. There's no surefire path to success.
> 
> ...


I am a firm believer in luck, plain and simple. It's not that working hard and producing good books won't up the odds, but one can do everything right and fail miserably, and the next guy comes along and does everything wrong and succeeds beyond anyone's wildest expectations. Keep writing. That's all one can do. Just do what you love and maybe one day luck will find you.


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Circumstances for promotion changed a lot since then. Rising tide floats all boats, when it goes down, it goes down... Those were golden days for self-publishing. I don't think they will repeat again to such degree when there were tons of readers coming to buy ebooks and there were less, way less, authors selling to them. Supply and demand is different now. KDP Select was a huge way to get big and it won't happen again (unless someone new comes to the scene and blows up, maybe some service like Oyster etc..). So rules keep changing.

Give yourself credit for writing a lot tho, worst case scenario you kept improving and getting better, and once one of your next books gets a lucky break, you might just get a ton of sales for backlist too thus justifying everything.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

You never recognize the right track until you look behind you.

I lucked into switching to a better genre, almost by accident. I wrote an erotic short just for fun.

I liken my publishing career to my dating experience. I never, ever got any better at picking 'em. I just kept getting out there, and when I got something great, I locked it down. Yes, I'm married! Someone lives with me and gets to hear all my many thoughts and opinions, all day every day!


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## Lloyd MacRae (Nov 18, 2012)

If you haven't already done so....I would suggest looking at the numbers Joe Konrath posted for his books in the link below.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.ca/2013/10/guest-post-by-tom-keller-and-konrath.html

This is a comment he made:

Also look at some of my individual titles and see how few they're selling. I've had some big hits, but the majority of my books have modest, and even lackluster, sales. But when you have a lot of titles, even modest sales can add up.

Other prolific authors will tell you that no one really knows which book or story will resonate with the reading public. All we can do is keep writing...improve our craft through study and feedback...and raise a fist to the fickle gods of authorial success %$#* you I will persevere 

will %$#* get me prodded?


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## WordSaladTongs (Oct 14, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> You know what amazes me? Here we have clear evidence that the "formula" is not a formula after all, and there is no guarantee of success in this business. Basically, that the universe as we know it is entirely uncertain. And yet, in these comments, people still want to find some way to make the "formula" work. People keep trying to figure out why it's not working.
> 
> Here's the reason: There are no guarantees. Everything is uncertain. There's no surefire path to success.


This is so true. I've been writing full time for over 5 years and I've seen so many freelancers have to go out and get jobs after simply not making it. None of us, no matter how hard we try or how good we are, is entitled to "success" (however you choose to define that). I know that there are many self-pubbers who are doing FAR better than me and started well after I did--that's just the way it goes sometimes. Still, it's always good to analyze what you're doing and see if there is anything you can do differently--after all, the only thing you can control is your approach to the process so you might as well go ahead and do that.

Valerie--thanks for sharing, I hope business picks up for you!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

E.L. MacRae said:


> If you haven't already done so....I would suggest looking at the numbers Joe Konrath posted for his books in the link below.
> 
> http://jakonrath.blogspot.ca/2013/10/guest-post-by-tom-keller-and-konrath.html
> 
> ...


Yes -- this is why the "write more books" advice is the most popular advice. More titles will not necessarily earn you more money right now. More titles just increase your odds of writing that ONE title that hits it big with readers. And then you do it again -- write a bunch more that may not do as well, but you keep it up because you know you'll stick the landing on another book that will be a big seller again.

"Write more books" isn't a guarantee of steadily increasing sales, though it does happen that way for some authors. It's insurance to keep you moving toward that future runaway hit you haven't written yet.


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## xoxo (Sep 6, 2013)

I give this thread the Most Depressing Thread of 2013 Award. 

*confetti*


If anyone needs me I'll be rocking back and forth in the corner.


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## Joseph Turkot (Nov 9, 2012)

I've been on 3-400 sales a month for a few months in a row now. I didn't really sell anything until I tried switching genres.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Interesting thing about the authors that haunt this place, just today authors ranking from 145 (and she may be higher on another book) to rank 1,341,000 have posted in the WC today.   Pretty cool we have a bit of everyone.
This is ranks on books.
So ask 100 people get 300 different answers.    This is also lots of books to compete with.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

PiiaBre said:


> I give this thread the Most Depressing Thread of 2013 Award.
> 
> *confetti*
> 
> If anyone needs me I'll be rocking back and forth in the corner.


Hysterical.


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## WordSaladTongs (Oct 14, 2013)

PiiaBre said:


> I give this thread the Most Depressing Thread of 2013 Award.
> 
> *confetti*
> 
> If anyone needs me I'll be rocking back and forth in the corner.


I dunno, maybe it's the most liberating? I think Valerie alluded to this as well. I mean, if you know there are no guarantees and that following "rules" doesn't ensure success, doesn't it make you feel a little freer to have fun with your career?

I think sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves to PERFORM and MAKE IT and we lose sight of the journey. We get to write, create and publish at will. We get to create our own covers, write our own blurbs, direct our own book trailers, control our own art AND we have access to tons of potential readers. That's amazing! Add to that an actual increase opportunity to earn real money at this and it's really pretty magical.

Okay, I'm dry heaving on my own positivity so I'm going to go shoot some stuff on my teevee now.


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## gonedark (May 30, 2013)

Content removed due to TOS Change of 2018. I do not agree to the terms.


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## jnfr (Mar 26, 2011)

cinisajoy said:


> Interesting thing about the authors that haunt this place, just today authors ranking from 145 (and she may be higher on another book) to rank 1,341,000 have posted in the WC today. Pretty cool we have a bit of everyone.
> This is ranks on books.
> So ask 100 people get 300 different answers. This is also lots of books to compete with.


That's so great. Thanks for checking those numbers for us.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

It's not going to help you to hear this, but I don't think it's unusual to average fewer copies sold per book as time goes on. Even for folks doing well, back list tends to slide once you've finished with that series, while the newer books rank higher. Eventually, you've got a handful of older books that don't sell well at all anymore, while your most recent 2-4 are still rolling along doing the bulk of your selling.

I certainly don't see a proportionate increase in overall sales when I release a new book. The series I finished in spring 2012 might as well sell nothing nowadays.

The trick is finding the new stuff that will carry on.



Mimi said:


> I liken my publishing career to my dating experience. I never, ever got any better at picking 'em. I just kept getting out there, and when I got something great, I locked it down.


I think this is good advice, and I'm not just saying it because I've long lusted for Dalyimi's heaving bosom. If what you're doing isn't working, try putting out feelers in new genres/series that interest you. See what happens.

Also, I think this thread needs a group hug.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I live by two mantras:

1. No one owes me a living
2. What goes up must come down

I agree that writing more books applies to new material. Your old books will continue to sell in waves (even if they're more like ripples--all up, those sales count) but what drives the sales are your new books.

(unless you sell really well at Kobo, then you're basically screwed at the moment)


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

I don't agree with more titles equate to increased sales. I only have four titles out - five if you include my short story - and I have more than 125,000 sales in the past year. There is no magic bullet. It's just hard work, a willingness to listen to people who know, and most of all  LUCK! My books aren't any better than others out there. I just worked relentlessly, and got very lucky when I hit on the right thing at the right time. 
Russel Blake has a post on his blog about increasing your sales. If there is anything that comes close to a magic bullet, that's it.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

BrianDAnderson said:


> I don't agree with more titles equate to increased sales. I only have four titles out - five if you include my short story - and I have more than 125,000 sales in the past year. There is no magic bullet. It's just hard work, a willingness to listen to people who know, and most of all LUCK! My books aren't any better than others out there. I just worked relentlessly, and got very lucky when I hit on the right thing at the right time.
> Russel Blake has a post on his blog about increasing your sales. If there is anything that comes close to a magic bullet, that's it.


Do you think part of your success can be traced to your pricing? I glanced at your Amazon list and saw that most of your novels are priced at $2.99 and $3.99 which seem to be the magic numbers these days, right? So maybe something can be said about making books affordable for readers. I see that your books are not small in page count either. So I think that's respecting your readers. Speaking as a reader, it makes me sad when I splurge $$$ on "half a book." So I think pricing is important too, not just writing lots of books?

I think I know how to price my non-fiction, but I am concerned about my fiction price. If I write 400 pages and price it at $4.99 is that fair to both the reader and the writer? What if I write 300 pages and price it at $3.99? Isn't that too "few" pages?


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

cinisajoy said:


> Interesting thing about the authors that haunt this place, just today authors ranking from 145 (and she may be higher on another book) to rank 1,341,000 have posted in the WC today. Pretty cool we have a bit of everyone.
> This is ranks on books.
> So ask 100 people get 300 different answers. This is also lots of books to compete with.


Hey, I have a book (not in my sig) that's ranked around 1.8 million on Amazon.com. Try beating that.


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## Hudson Owen (May 18, 2012)

I would say to separate writing and promoting, for this reason: You cannot write at full tilt all the time.  At some point, your mind will begin to break down.  If you set a period of weeks, say, to promote your books, your mind will look for more promotional opportunities, and more... Writing one day and promoting the next doesn't work for me.  Of course, if you write and publish and sell well with no promotion, then I suppose it makes more sense to write on, McDuff.  Still, you need a break from writing once in a while.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

JanThompson said:


> Do you think part of your success can be traced to your pricing? I glanced at your Amazon list and saw that most of your novels are priced at $2.99 and $3.99 which seem to be the magic numbers these days, right? So maybe something can be said about making books affordable for readers. I see that your books are not small in page count either. So I think that's respecting your readers. Speaking as a reader, it makes me sad when I splurge $$$ on "half a book." So I think pricing is important too, not just writing lots of books?
> 
> I think I know how to price my non-fiction, but I am concerned about my fiction price. If I write 400 pages and price it at $4.99 is that fair to both the reader and the writer? What if I write 300 pages and price it at $3.99? Isn't that too "few" pages?


Pricing is important. People expect to spend more money on well known Big Six authors. But many will buy indie being that it's more affordable. All of my books hit the market at $4.99 for the first few weeks, then they are reduced to $3.99. Book One is $2.99 because the publisher offered it at a discount and never changed it back. It was selling well at that price, so we said, "What the hell. Leave it." It didn't make a huge difference financially. I NEVER offer my books for free. I work hard and think I deserve to be paid for it. Besides, my books are being pirated on so many sites anyway, what's the point?
Word count...yeah, I think if you buy a book, it should be a book, not a pamphlet. If you are going to write a short novelette, that's cool but charge less. People know when they've been shorted, and don't like it. I try to keep my books about 100,000 words each - give or take a few thousand. I would like to write longer books, but printing costs get outrageous beyond a certain length.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

BrianDAnderson said:


> Pricing is important. People expect to spend more money on well known Big Six authors. But many will buy indie being that it's more affordable. All of my books hit the market at $4.99 for the first few weeks, then they are reduced to $3.99. Book One is $2.99 because the publisher offered it at a discount and never changed it back. It was selling well at that price, so we said, "What the hell. Leave it." It didn't make a huge difference financially. I NEVER offer my books for free. I work hard and think I deserve to be paid for it. Besides, my books are being pirated on so many sites anyway, what's the point?
> Word count...yeah, I think if you buy a book, it should be a book, not a pamphlet. If you are going to write a short novelette, that's cool but charge less. People know when they've been shorted, and don't like it. I try to keep my books about 100,000 words each - give or take a few thousand. I would like to write longer books, but printing costs get outrageous beyond a certain length.


I was just happy that The Sword of Truth showed up on the also bought for my Fantasy Book 2. Perma-free on Book 1 if finally starting to edge the sales up on the other titles.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

BrianDAnderson said:


> Pricing is important. People expect to spend more money on well known Big Six authors. But many will buy indie being that it's more affordable. All of my books hit the market at $4.99 for the first few weeks, then they are reduced to $3.99. Book One is $2.99 because the publisher offered it at a discount and never changed it back. It was selling well at that price, so we said, "What the hell. Leave it." It didn't make a huge difference financially. I NEVER offer my books for free. I work hard and think I deserve to be paid for it. Besides, my books are being pirated on so many sites anyway, what's the point?
> Word count...yeah, I think if you buy a book, it should be a book, not a pamphlet. If you are going to write a short novelette, that's cool but charge less. People know when they've been shorted, and don't like it. I try to keep my books about 100,000 words each - give or take a few thousand. I would like to write longer books, but printing costs get outrageous beyond a certain length.


Thanks! I didn't look closely to see what genre you write, but for my thrillers, I can't help but write 100K. It's the genre, I think. But when I sat down to write my contemporary women's fiction, I finished telling the stories by the time I hit 60-80K.

My concern in terms of word count is TIME. It takes time to research a book and write 100K words. I'm seeing selfpubbers writing lots of books at unimaginable velocity that I cannot keep up with. So I go at my own tortoise pace, chugging along, but always wondering at the back of my mind whether if I had written fewer words I could have published sooner and produced more books. Which we now find out might not be the answer LOL.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

JanThompson said:


> Thanks! I didn't look closely to see what genre you write, but for my thrillers, I can't help but write 100K. It's the genre, I think. But when I sat down to write my contemporary women's fiction, I finished telling the stories by the time I hit 60-80K.
> 
> My concern in terms of word count is TIME. It takes time to research a book and write 100K words. I'm seeing selfpubbers writing lots of books at unimaginable velocity that I cannot keep up with. So I go at my own tortoise pace, chugging along, but always wondering at the back of my mind whether if I had written fewer words I could have published sooner and produced more books. Which we now find out might not be the answer LOL.


I see the same thing regarding velocity. I write fast, but because of the editing and proofing process I can on publish two books per year. Book One and Two were already written when I signed with my publisher and I was beginning the third. This why I was able to put them out so quickly. Book Four came out almost six months after Book Three and I'm looking at March of next year for Book Five.

There are schools of thought on this that I don't agree with. Some think that they can forgo a rigorous editing and proofing process and get away with it. Well, I suppose they can. But I believe longevity in any industry is built on reputation. I certainly don't want to be known for cheaply produced, unpolished work. I hope one day to be among authors I respect and enjoy. And if that day comes I want to be able to hold my head high.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

Greg Strandberg said:


> I was just happy that The Sword of Truth showed up on the also bought for my Fantasy Book 2. Perma-free on Book 1 if finally starting to edge the sales up on the other titles.


I saw that. Cool.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

BrianDAnderson said:


> I see the same thing regarding velocity. I write fast, but because of the editing and proofing process I can on publish two books per year. Book One and Two were already written when I signed with my publisher and I was beginning the third. This why I was able to put them out so quickly. Book Four came out almost six months after Book Three and I'm looking at March of next year for Book Five.


I agree with professionalism. Even when I was running my own company, the key to my business was professionalism. But it all takes time. E.g. I'm looking at 2-3 months to go through all the levels of editing.

You spoke of publishers. Are you self-published or are you with a traditional publisher?


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

JanThompson said:


> I agree with professionalism. Even when I was running my own company, the key to my business was professionalism. But it all takes time. E.g. I'm looking at 2-3 months to go through all the levels of editing.
> 
> You spoke of publishers. Are you self-published or are you with a traditional publisher?


Small Press.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

BrianDAnderson said:


> Small Press.


I think small presses are winners in today's publishing race.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Frequency matters. It's not exactly passive income.

I wrote a bunch of books (i forget how many) under my first pen name, Dalya Moon. Mostly YA.

I sold just over 9,000 ebooks under that name in 2012. Admittedly, a good chunk was due to successful Select freebie runs. I probably ruined that career for myself because I didn't do anything effectively, and believed all the wrong things, and did all the wrong things, such as "just keep writing." Two of those books would never have been written by my current rules. However, those two books I count as some of my best work. You win some, you lose some.

I haven't released a new title under that name since August 2012. Didn't unpublish or anything weird. Just left them.

In 2013, which is drawing to a close, I sold 1,878 of that pen name's books. 300 were from a Bookbub ad on the fantasy novel.

Frankly, I'm surprised I've even sold that many.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

JanThompson said:


> I think small presses are winners in today's publishing race.


Kidding? I think they're the losers. Since most are one-man (or woman) operations, this means that for most of them, there is little that they have time to do well that writers can't do themselves, and pay no advance and a much-reduced percentage. Writers are voting with their feet. Most small presses die within a few years of starting up, leaving writers with a mess and the press owners with lots of books in their garage. I've seen it so many times.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> Kidding? I think they're the losers. Since most are one-man (or woman) operations, this means that for most of them, there is little that they have time to do well that writers can't do themselves, and pay no advance and a much-reduced percentage. Writers are voting with their feet. Most small presses die within a few years of starting up, leaving writers with a mess and the press owners with lots of books in their garage. I've seen it so many times.


I do know that I spent nine months self-published and managed to sell 30 books. I signed with small press and sold 1000 the first full month. Since then my career has grown by leaps and bounds. As I posted earlier 125,000 in a year. The proof is in the pudding, or so they say. So, for my part....winner.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

BrianDAnderson said:


> I do know that I spent nine months self-published and managed to sell 30 books. I signed with small press and sold 1000 the first full month. Since then my career has grown by leaps and bounds. As I posted earlier 125,000 in a year. The proof is in the pudding, or so they say. So, for my part....winner.


I'm trying this for myself, because I have a book coming out with a boutique press, but I've seen so many small presses fail, or worse, sit on people's books and do no marketing, that I think you've got to be really lucky to strike a good one.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> I'm trying this for myself, because I have a book coming out with a boutique press, but I've seen so many small presses fail, or worse, sit on people's books and do no marketing, that I think you've got to be really lucky to strike a good one.


They work closely with me and are constantly looking for new ways to advance both the company and me. Thus far, very few complaints.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

justsomewriterwhowrites said:


> You seem to be in the perfect position to do a pricing experiment. You don't have much to lose if it doesn't work. Try raising your prices significantly. It will put you in front of a different type of reader. When I say significantly, I mean put your books in the 6.99 to 9.99 price range of mass market paperbacks and see what happens after a few months. I know a lot of others recommend lower prices, but I've found success on the higher end at 6.99 and I think you get a different kind of reader at those prices than you get at the lower prices. It might help. And if it doesn't, you can lower your prices again.


Justsomewriter--Not a bad suggestion. Thanks. I might just try it.



cinisajoy said:


> I went and looked at a couple of your rankings. It looks like your Key West series is doing a bit better than the Vegas series. I have no clue what you should do. It is obvious from Hard Cash that at least one reader liked your books. Good luck is all I have for you.


Cinisajoy--You're right about the Key West series doing better than the Las Vegas series. Thanks for the good wishes.



SBJones said:


> http://www.yasiv.com/#/Search?q=B0050642V2&category=Books&lang=US
> 
> Looks like there are four books that point back to yours right now.


SB--The ones that point back to mine are other books of mine. My problem is that none of my books appears on anyone else's also-bought list.



daringnovelist said:


> Just in case it got lost in my post, I'm going to ask again: since sales can be extremely seasonal, can you give us month to month comparisons, rather than giving us mostly the "hot" months for the fewer books and "slow" months for the "more books" categories?
> 
> Give us Jan 12 vs. Jan 13, Apr 12 vs Apr 13, as well as July, Sep, and Oct of 12 to compare to the same months in 13.
> 
> Camille


Camille--The month-by-month figures (compared year-to-year) follow no particular pattern. Some months are better than others, for no obvious reason, but overall, the numbers arch downward. I sold about 400 books in June, 2013, but that was after a BookBub ad which produced a spectacular free period in Select (37,000 downloads, #1 overall and #1 in two categories). However, the post-free bounce only came to about 350 books, then everything died out after two weeks. And still no appearance on anyone else's also-bought list.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

Cherise Kelley said:


> I agree. And:
> 
> The Best Practice seems to be boiling down to this:
> 
> ...


Cherise--That really makes sense, but I'm just not sure that "riveting", a very subjective concept, automatically translates to sales.



lisamaliga said:


> Have you considered writing nonfiction? How about a book on poker tips? Key West/Florida travel tips? Some other topic that appeals to you. Nonfiction sells well and you can usually price it higher.


Lisa--Good suggestions, but writing nonfiction doesn't interest me in the least. However, buried in your post is the notion that I should perhaps rethink my ability to write fiction. And on that, you may be 100% right.



Edward W. Robertson said:


> Do you have a mailing list or some other way to directly inform readers when a new book is out? More books are less likely to help if nobody knows about them.


Edward--I have a small mailing list, fewer than 50 names. At the end of my ebooks, I urge readers to send me their email addresses, but so far, none have.



valeriec80 said:


> You know what amazes me? Here we have clear evidence that the "formula" is not a formula after all, and there is no guarantee of success in this business. Basically, that the universe as we know it is entirely uncertain. And yet, in these comments, people still want to find some way to make the "formula" work. People keep trying to figure out why it's not working.
> 
> Here's the reason: There are no guarantees. Everything is uncertain. There's no surefire path to success.
> 
> ...


Valerie--You have hit the nail squarely on the head. No guaranteed path to success. Not even the "Write more books!" gospel, to which I can attest. I see no end in sight. I'm about 48,000 words into a new novel, which has been stalled for the last five or six months precisely because of lack of sales, which directly translates into lack of interest in writing. As you mentioned, it is oddly liberating, grasping this connection and realizing there might be no way out for me, but we'll see what the future holds.



Lolita Lopez said:


> I was going to ask the same question. I went to your site and didn't see a newsletter or mailing list sign up spot. You really need to make it easy for readers to sign up for a mailing list and like/follow you on social media. You want to KEEP and have easy access to the readers who like your books. A boost of even 100 hundred readers buying your books on released day will give you some useful visibility on Amazon, etc.


Lolita--I have a "contact me" spot on my website, but it's irrelevant, since my site only gets about 20 unique hits a day. My Facebook author page gets even less action. I do post news of my new releases on both, plus on my regular Facebook page, but I never see any first-few-days spike in sales of a new book.


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

You have a nice backlist. I recommend advertising the hell out of your books on all possible venues (BookBub, ENT, POI, KBT, Book Blast, etc.), accumulating a larger mailing list, then using that to launch further titles. Your books look great and you've got a lot of options for new readers, I really think you can reverse the tide pretty quickly.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

> At the end of my ebooks, I urge readers to send me their email addresses, but so far, none have.


Problem right there!

I would never send anyone who doesn't need to have it my email address. With a mailing list, you sign up with mailchimp or some such, and it's easy to unsubscribe. Most people have, like me, been bitten by mailing lists that are impossible to leave. (Anyone else have such a hell of a time with a joint called Angie's Diary? Have no idea how I got onto the list, no idea how to leave it)

That aside, if your audience is MMWM (middle-aged white males), being on the web and especially social media may be a waste of time. What does your audience do during the biggest part of the day? Where and how do they buy? I have a friend who has had some success with targeting peripheral interest groups--in other words, people interested in some aspect that is covered in your book, for example military technology or cybertechnology. Say if military people are part of your audience, find out which non-fiction (news/social) sites or magazines they read and advertise there.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

Thayer Berlyn said:


> I am a firm believer in luck, plain and simple. It's not that working hard and producing good books won't up the odds, but one can do everything right and fail miserably, and the next guy comes along and does everything wrong and succeeds beyond anyone's wildest expectations. Keep writing. That's all one can do. Just do what you love and maybe one day luck will find you.


Thayer--Thanks for the encouragement. You're right. No one knows for sure how to do this.



RBC said:


> Circumstances for promotion changed a lot since then. Rising tide floats all boats, when it goes down, it goes down... Those were golden days for self-publishing. I don't think they will repeat again to such degree when there were tons of readers coming to buy ebooks and there were less, way less, authors selling to them. Supply and demand is different now. KDP Select was a huge way to get big and it won't happen again (unless someone new comes to the scene and blows up, maybe some service like Oyster etc..). So rules keep changing.
> 
> Give yourself credit for writing a lot tho, worst case scenario you kept improving and getting better, and once one of your next books gets a lucky break, you might just get a ton of sales for backlist too thus justifying everything.


RBC--You're absolutely right. Circumstances today are far different than what they were a couple of years ago. Not much we can do about it.



E.L. MacRae said:


> If you haven't already done so....I would suggest looking at the numbers Joe Konrath posted for his books in the link below.
> 
> http://jakonrath.blogspot.ca/2013/10/guest-post-by-tom-keller-and-konrath.html
> 
> ...


EL--Joe Konrath comparisons are not really fair at this point. He got into the game very early, he had worked like a dog for years before that doing book signings and building a huge fan base, and jumped in when there were few writers and a lot of readers. The "Write more books!" mantra was tailor-made for him, because he had a lot of fans hungry for anything he wrote. For him, "modest" sales for a book would probably equal about 200 copies a month. If I did that, I'd be buying drinks for everyone here.

Having said that, you're still right when you say that no one really knows which book will resonate.



PiiaBre said:


> I give this thread the Most Depressing Thread of 2013 Award.
> 
> *confetti*
> 
> If anyone needs me I'll be rocking back and forth in the corner.


PilaBre--At last! I win an award! I'd like to thank the Academy, and my editor, and &#8230;



MarenHayes said:


> Checked your blurbs and covers and had one immediate thought--The Key West noir seemed original and engaging, less intrigued by the Vegas stories. Key West is a rich mine--you could write about it for fifty years and never run out of stories. Three books in a series seems like a quick start but fans of a concept--you have--and a good story set in a sexy location--you also have--will keep reading. More KW noir and a rockin' mailing list so you keep those fans on the hook could be another approach. A series can run indefinitely and you can experiment with new characters and ideas to gauge what gets traction. Then you aren't just churning out a bunch of books--you are becoming a brand. (Ignore this if you are so over Key West that you never want to type the words again.)


Maren--I'm not at all over Key West, and thanks for the kind words. As I mentioned earlier, I stopped working on a fourth Key West novel because of my utter lack of any success. Mountains of effort = no reward and none forthcoming. I'm not used to that kind of thinking. If and when I get back into it, my fourth Key West novel, now 47,000 words written, will be finished very quickly.



smreine said:


> It's not going to help you to hear this, but I don't think it's unusual to average fewer copies sold per book as time goes on. Even for folks doing well, back list tends to slide once you've finished with that series, while the newer books rank higher. Eventually, you've got a handful of older books that don't sell well at all anymore, while your most recent 2-4 are still rolling along doing the bulk of your selling.
> 
> I certainly don't see a proportionate increase in overall sales when I release a new book. The series I finished in spring 2012 might as well sell nothing nowadays.
> 
> ...


SMReine--I've heard that same idea from other writers too, that the earlier books tend to tail off in sales. However, my first Key West novel is still my biggest seller overall, by far. By way far. Why is that? Your guess is as good as mine.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

Sorry I took so long to reply to everyone's suggestions. Thanks to all of you for taking the time to offer your thoughts to what one poster called the Most Depressing Thread of 2013! And now, it's late (in Key West) and I'm tired.

Goodnight, everybody.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

BrianDAnderson said:


> There are schools of thought on this that I don't agree with. Some think that they can forgo a rigorous editing and proofing process and get away with it. Well, I suppose they can. But I believe longevity in any industry is built on reputation. I certainly don't want to be known for cheaply produced, unpolished work. I hope one day to be among authors I respect and enjoy. And if that day comes I want to be able to hold my head high.


I agree with this too, but the sad truth is that a lot people simply can't afford it. You mentioned earlier spending a thousand dollars or more on editing, but a lot of people wanting to start out don't even pay that much in rent, and can barely afford to pay that even. So what's the answer for them? They want to go long term and hang in there with their idols as well.

I guess if that's the case all you can do is keep going over your own work. Beta-readers would probably be your cheapest option, and even some El Cheapo editing services from people starting out might be worth it - hey, it's another set of eyes, right?

At the end of the day you put it out there, and for those with no editing I guess it comes down to how often they keep going over it. Some people put it out there and never hit the Bookshelf again. Others load a new copy ever 12 hours with the slightest of tweaks. I don't have all the answers but I think about it often.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

Greg Strandberg said:


> I agree with this too, but the sad truth is that a lot people simply can't afford it. You mentioned earlier spending a thousand dollars or more on editing, but a lot of people wanting to start out don't even pay that much in rent, and can barely afford to pay that even. So what's the answer for them? They want to go long term and hang in there with their idols as well.
> 
> I guess if that's the case all you can do is keep going over your own work. Beta-readers would probably be your cheapest option, and even some El Cheapo editing services from people starting out might be worth it - hey, it's another set of eyes, right?
> 
> At the end of the day you put it out there, and for those with no editing I guess it comes down to how often they keep going over it. Some people put it out there and never hit the Bookshelf again. Others load a new copy ever 12 hours with the slightest of tweaks. I don't have all the answers but I think about it often.


Anything worth doing is worth doing right. An old saying, but true. You save your money until you can get it done. Does it mean you can't release your book right away? Maybe. But at least when you are able to do so, it's a book that reflects the amount of effort and care you put into it. Why settle for less than your best effort? More importantly, why have your readers settle for less? 
I want longevity as a writer. I want to be known for being a writer who truly cares about how my book reads, how it looks, and how well the story flows. I want my readers to feel like their money and time was well spent.


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## nobody_important (Jul 9, 2010)

Mimi said:


> Frequency matters. It's not exactly passive income.
> 
> I wrote a bunch of books (i forget how many) under my first pen name, Dalya Moon. Mostly YA.
> 
> ...


What are your rules?


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## nobody_important (Jul 9, 2010)

Mike Dennis said:


> Edward--I have a small mailing list, fewer than 50 names. At the end of my ebooks, I urge readers to send me their email addresses, but so far, none have.


I'd never sign up for such a list because I'd worry that I'll never be able to leave. Do you just BCC everyone when you have a book out and use Gmail or something like that to mass email everyone? That'd worry me too that my email address is revealed to everyone on the list.


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## brie.mcgill (Jun 5, 2013)

^Ditto that, I was just about to ask Mimi the same thing.

............MIMI!


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## Lady Starlight (Oct 19, 2013)

This has also been my exact experience. (Quite frustrating honestly) This whole subject requires a block of text, but I'll try to keep it short and concise. I'd really like to ask a host of questions to see if we can get to the bottom of this-if there is even a bottom to get to.

I started it off with one or two books. What would happen was; books would start to sell, then would mysteriously just stop out of the blue. I am talking about selling a decent amount a day (maybe twenty), and then suddenly nothing. Zilch. I realized then that the only way to make decent money was to write more books. So I started doing that. However, the more I increased, the more I sold the *same*.

I write under various pen names and several different genres, and no one knows who I am across the spectrum, so it is doubly odd that sales could be the same across the board.

The question I have to ask is how is it possible that *all *of the books, now at thirty + titles, can go days without selling, though they are in different in genres? What makes them *all *of no interest to people at one time? What about tripling my title count, but still selling the *exact *same amount or close to it every month? How is that even possible?

The answer obviously lies with Amazon and their methods of operating their ranking system.

I can't count the amount of people who have released a book and said, "Well I did little to no promotion. I have no idea why this happened" when their book has taken off, selling 50 to 100 a day, and remained under a decent paid ranking for months and months. People need to be real about this. It is very unlikely for a complete unknown to reel in sales like that, doing absolutely *nothing*, when their are people who actually have wasted a lot of time and money advertising and don't even see anywhere close to the same results. This type of arbitrary success happens time and time again. I do not think it's a coincidence.

I think what happens is that somehow said person(s) book gets put in some sort of rotation in the system where it gets shown to a large amount of people daily thus resulting in sales. In essence, they get visibility everyday so they get easy sales without having to try at all. If their book remains long enough in this state they will have made thousands and thousands of dollars and accumulated a fan base.

I realize that the amount of titles in the Kindle Store are substantially growing everyday, however, by the way of plain math; if you have an ever increasing number of books you *should* see a sale increase rather than a decrease.

My questions to those who have experienced this mysterious slack in sales despite having increased their book count is this:

Is your KDP account an individual account or a business (publisher) account?

Have you ever been warned by amazon about anything dealing with your account? (This could include a violation of any kind)

Have you asked someone to review your book(s) (In essence a fake review)? Don't expect many to answer that one, LOL.

If you are an author who writes across multiple genres; Do you have titles that are stagnant for several days or a week, and then you'll finally get a sell in one genre, followed by a sale in another?

Does a new book you just released seem like it's about to take off, but then it suddenly goes from x amount of sales to 0 for days on end?

Do you sometimes experience an unexplained surge in sales (like maybe two to five in a day for one title) then right back to nothing?

What are the genre(s) you write under?

When do your sales happen? Weekends/days? And what time of the day does it seem to happen(if any pattern)?

It seems to me Amazon has a system in place to prevent people from publishing a large amount of books and making a lot of money. Otherwise, why else would you increase your book count, but yet not see any worthwhile results? And how else would they stop someone from publishing a large amount of books at once and raking in the dough? I think it's unfair for those who have legitimate titles to get hit by whatever safeguard that they have in place.

I would just like to know if they do this by somehow marking a large number of KDP accounts, whether by intent or due to some violation, so that all titles uploaded receive no real visibility resulting in poor sales, and no matter how many titles you add to the account, your sales wont rise.

Ebay has a ranking system where if you are a top-rated seller you get a privilege of having your listings shown above other people and more often. I wonder if Amazon as an internal system just like this and if publishers get the top rated status, while the rest (indies) get the average status, while a select few indies get top-rated, which is why they have break out titles.

I can't think of any other way that would make sense for this type of phenomena to occur.

Thoughts anyone?


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

Lady Starlight said:


> This has also been my exact experience. (Quite frustrating honestly) This whole subject requires a block of text, but I'll try to keep it short and concise.
> 
> Thoughts anyone?


I think you make some very valid points, and I, like many authors, have wondered about this. Encore is a fine example of them 'finding' overlooked books.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000497281

But how can it be proved, and even if it was, could anything be done about it? Would we _want_ anything done about it? People like living in fake realities.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Mike

I would, in order of action, (1) sign up for mail chimp; (2) update my book files on all platforms with the sign-up pitch/link (front and back matter) and, for the Amazon version, links to the remaining books in each series plus the audiobook for the specific title; (3) set the .99 first in series for Key West to perma-free (price it free on Apple and Kobo then report it as an Amazon customer (or get other Amazon customers to report it) as free on those other sites). You can always set it back to .99 after a month if it doesn't feel like it's working (although at 290 pages, I'd suggest longer than a 30-day experiment and note that free time will hurt your 80k rank (but hopefully improve your nonexistent alsobots) when/if you go back to paid). Also, do not raise it at or above 2.99 before price matching because I know a number of people who receive a nasty note from Amazon on that.  

I had a note in my books that they could gmail me their email address for release notes. Despite selling over 100,000 copies (and also giving away about 100,000 copies) with that note in all books for 18 months, I had maybe a total of 10 people who did so. Then I got mail chimp beginning of June of this year and have over 1100 subscribers. I have done some sign-up incentives -- such as alternate POV scenes or "deleted" scenes -- but the first 500 or so signed up with the mere promise that such a bonus scene was forthcoming. (I also recently chipped in to a multi-author rafflecopter giveaway designed to increase either FB likes or mailing list signups and that added about 150 to my total.)

I know the .99 versus free doesn't seem like it should make much difference, but it does in my experience. It's almost as if there is a mindset among a lot of readers that a .99 ebook is worth .99, but a free ebook could be worth 9.99, 12.99, etc. (Even though the price match will show .99 crossed out)


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

Some thoughts:

*Mailing List*

As others (Ed, Christa etc.) have suggested *the #1 thing you should do right now is set up a mailing list*, with a *clickable* link at the back of all your books (and on your website etc.).

Make that sign-up link the first thing readers see after the end. I use Mailchimp (it's free, pretty emails, works very well), and wrote about it here if you need more deets (or convincing):

*Back-matter*

Right after that mailing list sign-up, have a list of your other titles, with pole position going to the next book in that series. Make this *clickable links* and really push that next book in the series that the reader has just finished.

Tailor all the backmatter in each book for that book along the above lines.

*Categories*

Next, take a close look at your categories, and make sure you are in the most granular (suitable) sub-category for your work. I only checked Manslaughter, but to take that as an example, one of your cats is Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Suspense and you aren't going down a further level which will make it (a) easier for you to hit a chart/list and (b) slow the decay after any sales spike.

Go through each of your books and try and dig down and get more granular categories, possibly choosing at least one different one for other books in the series to widen your footprint.

*Marketing*

Once you have the backmatter and cats all optimised like that, put together a marketing plan. IMO, I would focus on the Key West series first, as I think they have stronger covers (LOVE those covers). The others are fine, but the Key West ones are really going to stand out from the crowd in an ENT/BookBub email or an Amazon chart.

You have a number of marketing options, but at this stage I'd suggest staying away from Select and/or going free for a few days. Things you can try:

1. A 99c sale on Key West Book #1, in conjuction with an ad with BookBub. Your last BookBub experience didn't pay out too well, but I think you'll get more joy from advertising a 99c book than a free one. Also try KBT, POI (sub your sale for free), and ENT (shoot for a Bargain Book ad there) for extra oomph.

2. Perma-freeing the first book in a series and running ads on that free book to drag new readers in at the start.

Those are the two biggest bullets in your marketing gun right now, IMO, but you'll only maximise your return on these strategies if you deal with the other stuff first.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

BrianDAnderson said:


> Anything worth doing is worth doing right. An old saying, but true. You save your money until you can get it done. Does it mean you can't release your book right away? Maybe. But at least when you are able to do so, it's a book that reflects the amount of effort and care you put into it.


This shows little understanding of the situation many of us are in. There's a certain elitist attitude among some writers, and it centers firmly on "hey, I did without a Starbucks a day for six months, and paid my editor" kind of thing.

Saving pennies we don't have to pay for editing (or covers, or whatever) means the book will _never_ come out. I'm not really good in math, but 0 x 0 = 0 anyway you look at it.

Maybe that's not how you intend to come off. I don't know, but that's how it reads. And it's not a new attitude. A thread a couple of months ago had more than one member basically telling others that if they can't afford to pay for services, they shouldn't publish. As if we have no right to get our books out, no matter how good they were, or how hard we'd worked on them.



> Why settle for less than your best effort? More importantly, why have your readers settle for less?


But why does it have to be paid editing = good book? Don't you believe there could be another way? Maybe swapping skill sets with another writer could be just as good an option?

Maybe we aren't settling for less than our best effort. Maybe we aren't expecting our readers to settle for less. Maybe we're going over our books, getting beta readers, or good friends who are good at catching mistakes to go over the books. Maybe there are a few typos that get through. Should we throw up our hands and give up?



> I want longevity as a writer. I want to be known for being a writer who truly cares about how my book reads, how it looks, and how well the story flows. I want my readers to feel like their money and time was well spent.


So do I. I just have to work with a lot less than some of you, settle for alternatives to paid services. But I've wanted to be a writer for all of my life (since first grade, anyway, when my teacher read us a book). If I listen to you -- and others who've expressed the same attitude -- I'd have to give up because I don't have money to spend like you think I should.

That makes me sad.


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## jvin248 (Jan 31, 2012)

Mimi said:


> Frequency matters. ...


Like Mimi says: Cadence is important

Production Speed (2011-2013 title publication date, Amazon author page data)
MStrong	HMWard	ECasey	BAndre	BRussell	HHowey
Average	20.7 22.3 26.5 46.9 31.8 40.2
Stdev	43.0 18.1 14.3 36.1 27.2 38.3
Average is the mean number of days between publications, stdev is the standard deviation that each publication varies, so Elle Casey puts a book out every 26.5 days but could be out 26.5+14.3=40.8 or 26.5-14.3=12.2 days using a single standard deviation.

Batching books (like releasing a whole trilogy in one day, like I did last year) doesn't appear ideal.

If you look at your Author Central Author Rank by title you will see a seven day drop off in the curves after launch and after a Select promo. then a longer 30 day-ish (folk-lore is 30 days in Amazon's algorithm). What are the other "cliffs" that people know about, timing wise? I heard the "new release" is 14 days.

There are long-cadence authors on here that sell a pile of books so this is only one mechanism to use the algorithm to advantage.


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi,

If I had to take a guess, and this is a guess, I would say that what you're seeing is just the normal progression for sales of books. As others said fresh and new is good. So when you put a new book out and its in the right genre and has a good cover etc, it sells and you get a boost in sales. But sooner or later Amazon drops it from their advertising and sales of that book slump.

Now what happens with series, and most of your books appear to be in series, is that while series overall sell better than singles (so I hear anyway) they aren't actually new and fresh all the way. The first book in a series is. The ones that follow - not so much. Your audience for book 2 is mainly composed of people who read and enjoyed book 1. So when you count your eleven titles count them as two series and however many singles. Then you start to see what's happening. Your readers are growing tired of the books in the old series and looking for something new. Writing further books in the same series isn't going to push your sales much.

This happens to indies and trade published alike. I mean we can all think of series where the first book was huge and then little by little the excitement for each following book in the series was a little less huge.

My thought, and bear in mind I never write a book intending for there to be a sequel, or for that matter advertise, do freebies, promote in any way etc is write something new and fresh. 

And while swapping genres is recommended by many here, I wouldn't recomend it. (Having said that I am the worst example writing sci fi, fantasy urban and epic, and Christian fantasy and currently looking at non-fiction.) The reason is that readers in one particular genre tend to like it and stick to it. So if they see one say epic fantasy book by you and like it, they will be tempted to pick up another epic fantasy by you. A sci fi, again not so much.

Cheers, Greg.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

> It seems to me Amazon has a system in place to prevent people from publishing a large amount of books and making a lot of money. Otherwise, why else would you increase your book count, but yet not see any worthwhile results? And how else would they stop someone from publishing a large amount of books at once and raking in the dough? I think it's unfair for those who have legitimate titles to get hit by whatever safeguard that they have in place.


No, no, no, no, no.

Why would Amazon do that?

Look, books get visibility because of sales. If a book sells well, Amazon shows it to more people.

Visibility leads to more sales.

That's how people suddenly sell well out of nowhere. They sold well right out the gate, Amazon increased their visibility, they sold even more, their visibility increased, etc.

As for why our books don't sell, it's generally one of two things: a) not getting seen b) very few people want to read them. (I always believe it's a, because b is too depressing to be considered.)


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

Sheila_Guthrie said:


> This shows little understanding of the situation many of us are in. There's a certain elitist attitude among some writers, and it centers firmly on "hey, I did without a Starbucks a day for six months, and paid my editor" kind of thing.
> 
> Saving pennies we don't have to pay for editing (or covers, or whatever) means the book will _never_ come out. I'm not really good in math, but 0 x 0 = 0 anyway you look at it.
> 
> ...


I did without much more than Starbucks for a few months. In fact, my first editor was a disaster. I saved for nine months only to find out the editor sucked. I had a family to support, so in order to have the book re-edited, I took a part time job and kept writing on very little rest. It took time, but I save up the money and paid another editor. Then I released. Then sold ziltcho. Then found that I needed proofing (I didn't know at the time) and editing was only one stage. So I saved some more.

I didn't say you have no right, or even that you shouldn't put out work. If you feel your work it ready and you're happy with it, then by all means go for it. But if you know that it still needs work and you put it out anyway. Well, don't be shocked when things don't go well.

Why does it have to be a paid mechanic that fixes your car? Because they know what they're doing. Sure. You can get your friend to fix it. But don't be surprised if your car spits and sputters. I've been through three editors and finally found a good one. Finding a good editor is more difficult than writing a novel, by far.

It's not about a few typo's. Hell, I've had my share of those. We're indie writers without the army of people pouring over every line. It happens. But proofing isn't editing.

Give up? Why? Believe me, I hate that it takes so long and the expense is not something my pocket doesn't feel. I'm not rich. But I still think patience is a virtue. I force myself to be a patient and go through the process, step by step. Is my work perfect? Hell no! But I release knowing I have put my very best effort into making it as perfect as I can.
I don't know how to separate quotes.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

BrianDAnderson said:


> I do know that I spent nine months self-published and managed to sell 30 books. I signed with small press and sold 1000 the first full month. Since then my career has grown by leaps and bounds. As I posted earlier 125,000 in a year. The proof is in the pudding, or so they say. So, for my part....winner.


This has not been my experience.

I have an erotic novella with a small press under a pen name. I made $125 the first month with them. I've yet to see anymore money on that title over the years it's been with them. As soon as my contract is up, I'm taking that book back, giving it a better more marketable cover, and publishing it myself.

I also was approached by a small press who wanted to publish me after I'd had a bit of success. I negotiated a test book with them, one that hadn't done well for me self-published. They edited it, made a gorgeous cover, got me a signing at a local bookstore and...

That book does exactly the same as it did when I self-published it, i. e. not well. (I think it's currently ranked in the neighborhood of #500,000 in the Kindle store.)

I'm pleased that you have success with your small publisher, however. Considering we're both just giving anecdotal evidence, I doubt there's much conclusion that can be drawn from our experiences. I'm certainly not anti-small publishers at all. Indies who can't afford editing might consider subbing to a small press for the learning experience of being edited. That process will tell you your own weaknesses, and then you can learn to correct them on your own.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> This has not been my experience.
> 
> I have an erotic novella with a small press under a pen name. I made $125 the first month with them. I've yet to see anymore money on that title over the years it's been with them. As soon as my contract is up, I'm taking that book back, giving it a better more marketable cover, and publishing it myself.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I imagine there are some bad small presses out there. And I happen to know that luck is involved. There are some great writers that never break through. My publisher has had reasonable success with their other authors, but nothing like what happened to me. All in all, they do a good job.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

PiiaBre said:


> I give this thread the Most Depressing Thread of 2013 Award.
> 
> *confetti*
> 
> If anyone needs me I'll be rocking back and forth in the corner.


Ha-ha! Yay for confetti!

No, it's not that bad. You have to look at it this way: once you finally write that one book that hits it big with readers, you'll have SO MANY OTHER BOOKS available for all those eager new readers to buy. Future money, wooo!!!


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## KerryT2012 (Dec 18, 2012)

I love this thread for so many reasons. Everyone took the advice ´write more´ and misconstrued what was actually being implied and this is the problem.
Write more, does not mean publish more………that is a known fact. The idea of writing more is to improve. I think they go hand in hand but others disagree.
Amazon has a big factor in terms of what sells and what does not.  If at the time Amazon decided to give your book a helping hand, then that is another consideration. My book has featured in the .co.uk email thread for 3 months now. I get them nearly every week. I have not changed my book but for August and September I sold one per day of this book in the UK. So far, October only 1. I could sit and scream and say, what is going on? I plod along, because that is all you can do.
There are authors out there who have one or two books and support a family of four. Therefore, personally I have seen and do not believe there is a direct correlation between the number of books you have published and the number you sell.
Also, Elle wrote a thread on how to sell books. You need a good blurb, cover, title and fundamentally a good marketing strategy.  One author wrote a couple of months back that they had their box set at least once a week. They changed the cover and started to sell about 50 per day. Revise your books, change what you need to do about your strategy, formula etc. It is a tough business. One, after 7 months of self-publishing nearly crying. I am not an expert I have gone from wondering why one book was selling 20 per day in its first month to only 20 per month in its third, when I was releasing a new book each month.
What I learnt, I am applying – I need to storytell better and this is my main focus. What is yours?


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Mike Dennis said:


> EL--Joe Konrath comparisons are not really fair at this point. He got into the game very early, he had worked like a dog for years before that doing book signings and building a huge fan base, and jumped in when there were few writers and a lot of readers. The "Write more books!" mantra was tailor-made for him, because he had a lot of fans hungry for anything he wrote. For him, "modest" sales for a book would probably equal about 200 copies a month. If I did that, I'd be buying drinks for everyone here.
> 
> Having said that, you're still right when you say that no one really knows which book will resonate.


I think Joe would disagree with you on that! It might be both encouraging and instructive for you to read this blog from the beginning...or from early on, well before he started self-publishing. He really didn't have a lot of fans hungry for much of anything. He was only making about $25K a year prior to self-pub, and filtering a lot of that money back into promoting his own books since his publishers weren't doing much for him. He was as midlist as a midlister can be, with no recognizable name in his genre. He didn't start to find his fanbase until he started self-publishing...until he self-published one book his publishers rejected, in fact, and it was the book that resonated with readers -- new readers who hadn't found his work before.

He really did start out much closer to your current level than you may think. It's worth taking a look at his early years and watching as his mind changed from tradpub to selfpub, and watching his career accelerate. True, his career took off during a different selfpub climate, but in any business climates always change. You may not be able to use the same specific tactics to promote your books that he used to promote his, but you'll probably get some good ideas that you can apply to the current climate.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Sheila_Guthrie said:


> This shows little understanding of the situation many of us are in. There's a certain elitist attitude among some writers, and it centers firmly on "hey, I did without a Starbucks a day for six months, and paid my editor" kind of thing.


I agree.

Try paying off divorce debt, paying for a wedding, and publishing your books all at the same time. Guess what has allowed me to pay off my divorce debt five years earlier than I thought I'd be able to, pay off my car six months earlier than I was scheduled to, and pay for my wedding without going into any further debt? Publishing my books now, and not waiting until I could afford to pay somebody else $1000 to look over them. I am lucky in that I have several good friends who are excellent writers and meticulously picky readers who are willing to swap editing and critiquing with me. It's not impossible to do, and if a person doesn't *pay* for a service, that doesn't indicate they don't have the loftiest aspirations or rigorous standards.

In the end, everybody needs to focus the resources they have where it makes the most sense to them to utilize those resources. You need to be happy with your own choices and your own path. If your methods are working for you, you don't need to seek anybody else's approval of the management of your own resources. Nor should you pass judgment on how others distribute their own resources, unless they ask you to -- because you don't know the financial situation they're in. Nor do you know what non-monetary resources they might have at their disposal.



Sarwah2012 said:


> I love this thread for so many reasons. Everyone took the advice ´write more´ and misconstrued what was actually being implied and this is the problem.
> Write more, does not mean publish more&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;that is a known fact. The idea of writing more is to improve. I think they go hand in hand but others disagree.


I guess I was operating from the assumption that you've already achieved enough skill that you're writing books readers want to read BEFORE you start to publish. 



> Also, Elle wrote a thread on how to sell books. You need a good blurb, cover, title and fundamentally a good marketing strategy.


THIS. The importance of packaging can't be overstated. In the case of the OP of this thread, though, I think he's got all this down, though his marketing strategy needs a spit-shine if he's not using a mailing list yet!


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Sarwah2012 said:


> I love this thread for so many reasons. Everyone took the advice ´write more´ and misconstrued what was actually being implied and this is the problem.
> Write more, does not mean publish more&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;that is a known fact. The idea of writing more is to improve. I think they go hand in hand but others disagree.
> Amazon has a big factor in terms of what sells and what does not. If at the time Amazon decided to give your book a helping hand, then that is another consideration. My book has featured in the .co.uk email thread for 3 months now. I get them nearly every week. I have not changed my book but for August and September I sold one per day of this book in the UK. So far, October only 1. I could sit and scream and say, what is going on? I plod along, because that is all you can do.
> There are authors out there who have one or two books and support a family of four. Therefore, personally I have seen and do not believe there is a direct correlation between the number of books you have published and the number you sell.
> ...


There are many variables that cause a book to sell more and to sell less. Sometimes I'll have a flurry of sales and I have nothing to attribute it to other than randomness. Something beyond most peoples control. I think David G's post above covers what you can do.

Writing more is always good and hopefully one gets better at writing. Sales is on another floor.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

dgaughran said:


> *Categories*
> 
> Next, take a close look at your categories, and make sure you are in the most granular (suitable) sub-category for your work. I only checked Manslaughter, but to take that as an example, one of your cats is Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Suspense and you aren't going down a further level which will make it (a) easier for you to hit a chart/list and (b) slow the decay after any sales spike.
> 
> Go through each of your books and try and dig down and get more granular categories, possibly choosing at least one different one for other books in the series to widen your footprint.


Mike - definitely visit this page re David's advice

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A3NTX9NCJD3D5X

Your seven keywords can be used to get into these categories. If you use them and don't get in, then I think you contact [email protected]

If you do decide to go perma-free and/or run an ad, get your keywords where you want them to be first.


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## Matt Ryan (Nov 16, 2012)

I feel like I need beer and cupcakes after reading this whole thread.

Wow, this a tough one. I don't want to blow smoke up your arse and say it's going to get better because who knows?

Even though I wrote against the idea of "just keep writing" advice recently, I still think it's good advice. If you aren't writing, you're quitting. At this stage, you are free, nothing is working so you can get a bit wild with all those books just sitting there, not selling, and try some crazy stuff:

Big box bundles have been steadily making a come-up. Take both of your series, all 6 books and sell them in one bundle for $.99, call it Keys to Vegas or something witty to tie the two together. Do all the book promo you can for this super sale and if it takes off it will give you the encouragement to write that fourth, fifth+ book in each series, which you will price at $2.99+.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

dgaughran said:


> Those are the two biggest bullets in your marketing gun right now, IMO, but you'll only maximise your return on these strategies if you deal with the other stuff first.


Wow, cool. Thanks Mr. Gaughran. I also recommend the OP check out Gaugrahn's book "Let's Get Visible." That is the best marketing book I've read (so far) for self-publishers. It's worth every penny of the $4.99 it costs.

"Let's Get Visible: How To Get Noticed And Sell More Books (Let's Get Publishing)"
http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Get-Visible-Publishing-ebook/dp/B00CPQ6YYI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382198939&sr=1-1&keywords=let%27s+get+visible


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Lady Starlight said:


> This has also been my exact experience. (Quite frustrating honestly) This whole subject requires a block of text, but I'll try to keep it short and concise. I'd really like to ask a host of questions to see if we can get to the bottom of this-if there is even a bottom to get to.
> 
> I started it off with one or two books. What would happen was; books would start to sell, then would mysteriously just stop out of the blue. I am talking about selling a decent amount a day (maybe twenty), and then suddenly nothing. Zilch. I realized then that the only way to make decent money was to write more books. So I started doing that. However, the more I increased, the more I sold the *same*.
> 
> ...


I have no evidence to back my opinion only my own experience, and it seems to fly in the face of many experts on kboards who suggest that writing in multiple genres under the same name is "bad practice" or idea. I use my own name and think about branding of me rather than my books. I am the brand. When readers buy my stuff, they are either buying fantasy, space opera, or paranormal fantasy primarily, but they know that I like to twist my paranormal into a sort of sci-fi/fantasy mash up cross genre thing. No complaints yet.

I am making a living rather than a killing.

I wonder if all the authors with dozens of pen names (that have one or two books under each one) are hurting themselves or helping themselves. I sometimes wonder if I am doing it wrong, but then I think about not earning enough to live on and stop wondering.  I am doing ok, and will never be rich, but I am happy.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

markecooper said:


> I wonder if all the authors with dozens of pen names (that have one or two books under each one) are hurting themselves or helping themselves. I sometimes wonder if I am doing it wrong, but then I think about not earning enough to live on and stop wondering.  I am doing ok, and will never be rich, but I am happy.


This, I want to know. Any insight, anyone? I'm about to make decisions on using pen names. Resistance is futile? Am I kicking off my publishing career on the wrong foot?

I'd like to hear some statistics:

- If you use pen names, what are your sales vs genre?
- If sales are low across the board, but add up to a decent ROI, is that the path you continue in?
- Do you drop pen names that generate low sales?
- Do you keep one website for all of the pen names and just say "writing as" on different pages?

All along I planned to brand my author name. You know, Neil Gaiman did it, so it must work somehow. Also lots of other authors I read do it. E.g. they write historical/contemporary, historical/suspense, contemporary/suspense, historical/contemporary/non-fiction, and one even write mystery/horror using the same author names. But! I have some side WIPs and mss that I might want to publish and I don't want to "dilute" my brand so do I use pen names? But markecooper asked a valid question... are these pen names hurting or helping you??


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## carolco (Apr 15, 2011)

Lady Starlight said:


> It seems to me Amazon has a system in place to prevent people from publishing a large amount of books and making a lot of money. Otherwise, why else would you increase your book count, but yet not see any worthwhile results?


I think this is entirely possible. Amazon is known for limiting their sellers' ability to earn large amounts of money (I'm talking about products on Amazon.com). They suspend a lot of fast selling accounts every day.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

carolco said:


> I think this is entirely possible. Amazon is known for limiting their sellers' ability to earn large amounts of money (I'm talking about products on Amazon.com). They suspend a lot of fast selling accounts every day.


What is the proof of Amazon "limiting their sellers' ability to earn large amounts of money?"

I want to know for my own information.

I find that statement hard to believe bc Amazon is a business with the goal of producing profits. Whenever authors succeed, they succeed because success of its vendors mean more percentages they earn. So reducing its own income doesn't make sense.

Now, if they are doing quality assurance -- all growing companies do that -- then I'd like to know what their parameters are.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Here are some thoughts: In April of 2012, I published several blogs warning that I thought the algo changes Amazon was introducing would reduce the efficacy of Select, and that it would get way harder for indies to sell books over the coming year. I was shouted down as a naysayer and a gloomy false profit. And yet, for all but a handful of authors working in extremely popular genres, it's gotten harder. Way harder.

You may be partially tracking the decline of the efficacy of Select. My hunch is you used free promos, juicing sales with them on the post-free bounce, and that's what was selling your books, for the most part. Could be wrong, but I don't think so. The pattern fits.

As to the advice, "write more books," I'll assume you write good books. Because writing more crappy books won't achieve anything. With the assumption they're good, I would counsel, as I have on numerous unpopular threads, doing several things. First, ensure the books are well-edited. Nothing will kill your sales over time than disappointed readers spreading the word that you're a hack or your product sucks. Second, my experience has been that it takes at least four to five books for a series to really gel and for it to achieve critical mass. Third, make the first book perma-free. Fourth, promote on a weekly basis, allocating 25% of your time to marketing-related tasks, 75% to writing.

There are a lot more books out now than before, as many have pointed out. As you have learned, books don't sell themselves. In retail, you have to constantly be attracting new eyes to your products. If you aren't doing something weekly, you aren't playing the retail game. The good news is that you have sufficient product to be able to rotate your promotional strategies and promote different books. For instance, you could try doing a .99 ENT special once every month or so on a different title. That's just one venue, but it's one that's effective. You can do one BB ad per month on the first book of a series, or as a .99 special (although the efficacy of that's fading now, too). There are plenty of venues, some that cost, some that don't, that you can play. You can do a giveaway. A blog hop. Interviews. Cross-promotion with other authors in your genre. Participate in bundles with other authors. Sky's the limit.

But the trick is you have to do them, and you have to be consistent.

Books do not sell themselves. "Write more books" is the worst advice I could give anyone. That's why I don't counsel that. I say, develop a business plan that makes sense for your book selling business, and work that plan 25% of your time. Write more books the other 75%. If you only write more books, you will likely fail. With a lot of books nobody has ever heard of or read.

I don't want to beat the dead horse of paying qualified talent to edit and proof your books - there are some very vocal advocates of DIY who view that counsel as a personal slight rather than sensible advice, and I don't feel like fighting that battle. But if you haven't had decent editing and proofing, it's quite possible that what you have put out there is sabotaging your efforts, and any money saved in the short run is costing you a career in the long one. Take that for whatever it's worth. 

And good luck. Nobody said this would be easy. Readers decide what it's worth their money to read. All you can do is invest to make it worth their money, and market so that they know you exist. The rest is largely chaos theory.


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## Kathy Clark Author (Dec 18, 2012)

Russell has very deep and logical thoughts about the business side of the business. I can reinforce his bottom line conclusion of a more crowded and competitive market further influenced by changes from Amazon.

I started uploading my 21 book back list in February last year and completed that in August. Starting September through this month I've written and released 6 new books. The latest books are better based on awards won and ratings and my gut feel tells me that as well. But 2013 unit sales are 5% lower than 2012 unit sales. Year over year analysis says the July thru September unit sales are down 26%, the price per book is down and total revenue is down 43%.

So writing more and better books has not been the answer for me. Outside the fact that the old backlist were romance with the last one published at a time when the word ebook was a typo and now I'm into suspense and YA, I struggle with finding the root cause and workable countermeasures.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> Books do not sell themselves. "Write more books" is the worst advice I could give anyone. That's why I don't counsel that. I say, develop a business plan that makes sense for your book selling business, and work that plan 25% of your time. Write more books the other 75%. If you only write more books, you will likely fail.


Completely agree here.
There are comments that older books start dropping in ranks and sales. Why? Does that mean all those millions of readers have either read them or decided not to? Or did you stop marketing them?
Why not take your older titles and pretend (even just to yourself) that they're brand new? Reach the remaining millions that haven't seen them.

It's not possible for most of us to have a BookBub ad every month and not all marketing advice is feasible for all of us, but there's enough doable stuff out there. Even this thread is full of good advice and experiences - you don't even need to buy one of that growing list of books that will teach you how to sell books.

I do worry about the concept of marketing a series. Placing the first book as a permafree is currently popular, but what about the rest? On one hand, it's generally assumed that readers like to start with the first book in a series. So then how and why promote a book in the middle of a series?


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Quiss: I only promote the first and second book in a series, and the latest release if it can be easily read, and provides a satisfying reader experience, as a stand-alone. But I've found far greater success with continually promoting the first book in a series as a perma-free than anything else.

JET is now a year old. It continually outsells my other series by double. But that other series sees 50% the free downloads as JET, so I completely grasp why that is. JET is more accessible than the other series, so the potential pool of readers is larger.

Still, with millions of readers out there, only a handful have heard of me, or my series. My job as book seller is to make enough noise so I continue getting that first book in the series visibility. The rest is up to what's between the pages.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Quiss, I think you did a great job rebranding Gods of Chenoweth into Flight of Exile. I love the new title and the new cover. And I see that you are at least selling some copies! I'm impressed that you stuck with it, and I am happy for you, that you got results.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Cherise Kelley said:


> Quiss, I think you did a great job rebranding Gods of Chenoweth into Flight of Exile. I love the new title and the new cover. And I see that you are at least selling some copies! I'm impressed that you stuck with it, and I am happy for you, that you got results.


Thanks. I'm pleased. Sales have also picked up internationally for that one. A tiny bit, but it's encouraging.
I really recommend Patty's blog about "why is this book not selling". Not just is it a good way to get input for your own slow title, but it's a good exercise to take a closer look at others' titles to see how you would improve them.
Sometimes it's too easy to overlook our own children's faults


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi,

Just to add two points since others have asked.

First yes - during the first three months of a new books release Amazon will promote it a little more than they would otherwise. Can't remember who's analysis of algorhythms this was. But what it means is that new books always have a slight advantage - and this is why most new books go through the same sales cycle where they start off with a hiss, bang and a roar, and then fade. This is why its a good plan if you can to get a new book out every three months, to take advantage of this.

Second, I can't give you numbers about genres and splitting, but I know that among my own books split into lets say four genres (sci fi, epic fantasy, urban fantasy, Christian fantasy), when I publish a new book in one genre I see a rise in sales of my other books in that genre but not so much in the others. So Wildling came out about two weeks ago, no fanfare, advertising or anything else of course. I expect it to go through the normal cycle over the next several months, and at the same time my other traditional fantasies like Maverick will pick up again. My sci fi's won't be affected much at all. Next month (hopefully) I'll have a Christian fantasy coming out and so my other two will get a bump, but the rest won't. (And when my philosophy monologues hit the shelf precisely nothing will change!)

Therefore my thought would be that if you want to maximise sales, stick to one genre.

Also someone said that its your name that sells books. To my mind this is true for Stephen King et al. But for most of us who aren't that well known, no. It has to be the books that sell themselves at the start at least. Later if you reach that stratosphere of literary success, yes, genre changing won't be such an issue for you because the readers will be seeking out your name instead of genre.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> You may be partially tracking the decline of the efficacy of Select. My hunch is you used free promos, juicing sales with them on the post-free bounce, and that's what was selling your books, for the most part. Could be wrong, but I don't think so. The pattern fits.


Is Select still working for anyone?


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

JanThompson said:


> That is the stark reality especially for us who are publishing for the first time. Publication costs with professional editors, pro cover designers, proofreaders are not cheap, as I'm finding out. This could derail my publishing dreams right now. You get what you pay for.
> 
> This is when I am grateful I paid attention in English class and read all those yawning literature books back at school LOL. However, even as I teach English, I'm no editor, and I am too close to my own work to edit. However, I self-edit and revise as many times as I possibly can so that when my mss get to the editors, they will be polished (I hope!) and I'm hoping for one-pass paid edits.


If you're a teacher, could you perhaps get another English teacher to proofread/edit your work for you? Friends who are English teachers or professors, journalists, translators, editors of small press mags, etc... (basically everybody who works with language and words for a living) make good beta-readers, if you cannot afford to pay for editing. Just make sure you don't exploit them.

In general, I believe that the finished book should look professional or at least very close to professional. How you get there, whether you use paid services, bartering, DIY or a mix of all three (which, I suspect, is what most of us do), is up to you.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

In my opinion writing more is always a good strategy. The more titles you have the easier it is to be found. However, you have to be visible; you have to promote. Select was always about visibility. Doing a large giveaway got books onto lists where people saw them, so they were purchased. Once the algo's changed, that particular tool became useless. 

Now, you have to find a way to keep your titles in front of readers eyes who want to purchase them. I don't publish particularly fast, though I'm working on it, and I do okay. But I do other things. I write series. My first book is free. I run a promo on something at least every other month somewhere. I participate in boxed sets. I have a street team. I engage on FB regularly. I have a healthy newsletter list. I change covers when needed. Everything I do helps. 

If you are just writing books and putting them up on retailers and doing nothing else, the only way you'll get sales is if you are hit by the publishing lottery. Marketing and figuring out what works is not easy, but it doesn't have to be hard either. There are books that can help you form a plan. Let's Get Visible is a great one. So is The Naked Truth.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

First of all, on a personal note, a thread like this one is the last thing I need. My debut novel goes up on Tuesday, and if you think I've been cool calm and collected about it, forget it.

On The Other Hand&#8230; threads like this are the best thing I need right now because of the reality check against unreasonable hopes. I've been around the boards since March and to tell you the truth I spend over an hour a day here. Learning, clowning around, etc. 
Mostly learning.

Mike&#8230; I don't have any advice for you that hasn't been stated here by people who have more experience and success than I, so I'm not going to waste your time repeating what's been said so well. I can't even name names, b/c the list would be too long. For me, I've bookmarked this thread and I'll be reading it over and over again.

I've been surprised again and again at the level of intelligence on this board. Your question came up with possible solutions that ran the gamut from statistical analysis to pricing and promotional strategy as just two examples. I used to subscribe to the Harvard Business Review. A big part of that periodical was case studies in which a problem was presented and different experts gave their opinions and were willing to back up their take with contributing evidence.

That same dynamic has happened here on just this thread, and is a common occurrence on Kboards.

Waitaminnit&#8230; I think I might have a valid opinion to offer&#8230;

You mentioned that you have 47K or so on a WIP sitting in a drawer b/c you lost your mojo. 
Here's the thing&#8230; and I've used this phrase by Tom Wolfe more times than I'd like to admit to:

_(W)hat I write when I force myself is generally just as good as what I write when I'm feeling inspired. It's mainly a matter of forcing yourself to write." 
― Tom Wolfe_

Now I don't know how long your 47K has been sitting. Maybe you just need to recharge. On The Other Hand&#8230; maybe you should give some thought to sitting down for 25 minutes and force it? Wish I knew you better to be able to zero in more here, but I do know that 'forcing' for 25 minutes has gotten my own mojo re-kindled a bunch of times.

Quick switch of a hat from Writer's Cap to Reader's Hat&#8230;.
I'm speaking as a reader now&#8230;

I looked at your first book in your Key West series. I'm in the middle of a Jack Reacher novel, but WTH, KD McLean and I have a dream of spending a few weeks in the Keys&#8230;

You have great covers and a decent blurb. So&#8230;

I just bought a copy. You made it stupid simple at a buck. What sold me was the Books and Pals blurb at the end of your Editorial section. I love Elmore Leonard. I'll shelve Reacher and take you for a spin over the next couple of nights. If I enjoy the book, I'll move along to the rest of your series. If not, I'll tell you why in a PM. (Switches Reader Hat for Writer Cap for a sec) and if I enjoy it, I'll drop the reviews on GR and Zon.

Good luck to you- I'll spend some more time hanging out with you later tonight through that time/space warp portal called a book.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

valeriec80 said:


> Visibility leads to more sales.
> 
> That's how people suddenly sell well out of nowhere. They sold well right out the gate, Amazon increased their visibility, they sold even more, their visibility increased, etc.


Valerie--Once again, you're right. That's exactly how people sell 40,000 books in three months or whatever. They sold well out of the gate and Amazon picked up the ball and promoted them internally, leading to no-effort-required sales and a ride into the stratosphere.

But of course, that leads to the question, how did they sell so well out of the gate, leading Amazon to put its shoulder into a huge promotional effort behind their book.


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## libbyfh (Feb 11, 2010)

Mike... I just sent you a FB message (couldnt figure out how to do it here)... it's in your "other folder" since we werent friends. Yet. Will be interested in your reply.

Best.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Decline of Select is a good thought.



Cherise Kelley said:


> Is Select still working for anyone?


I think it depends on what you mean by "working"! It can still give you a small bump in sales and increase your visibility over zero, but I haven't heard anybody touting it as the must-do strategy anymore.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

Desmond X. Torres said:


> Waitaminnit&#8230; I think I might have a valid opinion to offer&#8230;
> 
> You mentioned that you have 47K or so on a WIP sitting in a drawer b/c you lost your mojo.
> Here's the thing&#8230; and I've used this phrase by Tom Wolfe more times than I'd like to admit to:
> ...


Desmond--Thanks so much for the support. Hope you like the book. Please let me know, yea or nay.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

libbyfh said:


> Mike... I just sent you a FB message (couldnt figure out how to do it here)... it's in your "other folder" since we werent friends. Yet. Will be interested in your reply.
> 
> Best.


Pizza Kake!










Then...









And Voila! You're here!










BTW... love your avatar w/ the rotating pics.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

blakebooks said:


> Here are some thoughts: In April of 2012, I published several blogs warning that I thought the algo changes Amazon was introducing would reduce the efficacy of Select, and that it would get way harder for indies to sell books over the coming year. I was shouted down as a naysayer and a gloomy false profit. And yet, for all but a handful of authors working in extremely popular genres, it's gotten harder. Way harder.
> 
> You may be partially tracking the decline of the efficacy of Select. My hunch is you used free promos, juicing sales with them on the post-free bounce, and that's what was selling your books, for the most part. Could be wrong, but I don't think so. The pattern fits.
> 
> ...


Russell--I'm a big fan of your KB posts. Always insightful and well-thought out, to say nothing of concise. This one is no exception.

Your hunch about my using Select to sell my books was on the money. And, as you have often stated in your posts, the bump was always temporary, never resulting in "legs" for any of my books. I gave away over 100,000 books on Select before I saw the con and pulled out altogether.

Don't be concerned about my editing. I spend money on it and I'll put it up against anyone's, and that goes for my formatting and my covers.

As far as making my first book in the series perma-free, I addressed this in an earlier reply. I think that works only if you're already visible. I've priced the first book in my Key West series at 99¢, and made the first in my Las Vegas series perma-free. The 99¢ book is "outselling" the free book by a wide margin. As you said, though, the series doesn't really mean anything until you get at least four or five books in it. I'm at three for each series right now, with 47,000 words of a fourth Key West novel in the can, but I'm totally lacking in desire to continue because of my failed track record. You know, I go back to that novel and look at where I left off, and can't find any reason to write another word. So far, in my writing career, more effort has equaled diminishing returns, something I'm not accustomed to.

Anyway, my thanks for weighing in, and the best of luck to you in all your endeavors. Especially the ones concerning dogs. I love them.


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## Darren Wearmouth (Jan 28, 2013)

Mike Dennis said:


> Valerie--Once again, you're right. That's exactly how people sell 40,000 books in three months or whatever. They sold well out of the gate and Amazon picked up the ball and promoted them internally, leading to no-effort-required sales and a ride into the stratosphere.
> 
> But of course, that leads to the question, how did they sell so well out of the gate, leading Amazon to put its shoulder into a huge promotional effort behind their book.


Amazon don't put in huge promotional efforts for indies, the sales continue because of ranking exposure, at least that was the case for us. Most of the advertising is taken up by the publisher accessed White Glove Programme, which we don't have. Amazon also push their own titles, and I totally understand that.

We sold 40,000 in just over a couple of months because of a few things. A marketing strategy for launch, ranking exposure, a good cover, price point and a bit of luck.

I'm quite sure if we'd have published the book for $4.99 and left it there without a push, it would have maybe sold a few hundred copies and be ranked in the high thousands. We had to work at it.

I'd be happy to chat on email if you want details. The caveat being, what worked for us, might not work for the next person.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Mike: Okay, here's my advice. I read one of your look insides. You can write. So that's not the problem.

I suspect what is is a lack of coherent promotion. To that end, here's my prescription: 1) Do a BB ad for the perma-free book. 2) Make your second series first book also perma-free, and then do a BB ad for that. On the six months you're barred from running the same title, do a promo every sixty days with the sites that will run free books, for each title, alternating the months. During that time, write two more books, one for each series. At the end of six months, come back and tell us if the world still sucks, or if you've had a miraculous boost in your fortunes brought about by that strategy. My bet would be you will, as long as you adhere to marketing the hell out of your perma-free books, committing to doing something every week to raise visibility. It's rather like working out - you don't go to the gym every six months, work out for 10 hours, and then quit for another half a year. This is retail, where frequency equates to visibility. You need visibility. Frequent and consistent marketing is the way to do it.

I presume you have a blog, facebook page that you post to regularly, and twitter presence? If not, those are three more things you need to attend to, as is a mailing list.

The worst dogs are better than most of the best people. Shame they don't live 80 years, like parrots.


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## Guest (Oct 19, 2013)

blakebooks said:


> It's rather like working out - you don't go to the gym every six months, work out for 10 hours, and then quit for another half a year.


Exactly! You go everyday and it's tough at first but after awhile it becomes easier and low and behold, maybe you even come to like it.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

Christa Wick said:


> Mike
> 
> I would, in order of action, (1) sign up for mail chimp; (2) update my book files on all platforms with the sign-up pitch/link (front and back matter) and, for the Amazon version, links to the remaining books in each series plus the audiobook for the specific title; (3) set the .99 first in series for Key West to perma-free (price it free on Apple and Kobo then report it as an Amazon customer (or get other Amazon customers to report it) as free on those other sites). You can always set it back to .99 after a month if it doesn't feel like it's working (although at 290 pages, I'd suggest longer than a 30-day experiment and note that free time will hurt your 80k rank (but hopefully improve your nonexistent alsobots) when/if you go back to paid). Also, do not raise it at or above 2.99 before price matching because I know a number of people who receive a nasty note from Amazon on that.
> 
> I had a note in my books that they could gmail me their email address for release notes. Despite selling over 100,000 copies (and also giving away about 100,000 copies) with that note in all books for 18 months, I had maybe a total of 10 people who did so. Then I got mail chimp beginning of June of this year and have over 1100 subscribers. I have done some sign-up incentives -- such as alternate POV scenes or "deleted" scenes -- but the first 500 or so signed up with the mere promise that such a bonus scene was forthcoming. (I also recently chipped in to a multi-author rafflecopter giveaway designed to increase either FB likes or mailing list signups and that added about 150 to my total.)


Christa--
I'm checking into Mailchimp right away.

Each of my books already has links to my other books.

I lowered the price of the first book in my Key West series to 99¢ a couple of months ago. I have a built-in resistance to perma-free, wherein I don't feel it would help. However, everyone on KB is high behind it, so I made the first book of my Las Vegas series perma-free on Apple, where I've given away a whopping 15 copies in two months. I notified Amazon of its perma-free status on Apple, but so far Amazon hasn't changed it to free. Meanwhile, the other books in the series are doing nothing at all.

It just seems to me that perma-free works only if you're already selling a lot of books. If I had a lot of visibility already, putting out the word that volume I of a series is free would really bring me major action. Through Select, I've already given away over 60,000 copies of the first Key West novel, all to no avail.



psychotick said:


> Now what happens with series, and most of your books appear to be in series, is that while series overall sell better than singles (so I hear anyway) they aren't actually new and fresh all the way. The first book in a series is. The ones that follow - not so much. Your audience for book 2 is mainly composed of people who read and enjoyed book 1. So when you count your eleven titles count them as two series and however many singles. Then you start to see what's happening. Your readers are growing tired of the books in the old series and looking for something new. Writing further books in the same series isn't going to push your sales much.


Greg--This is pretty true for me. My first in the series (both series) have been the much better sellers than any of the subsequent books. Even in the Key West series, where each novel has a different central character and a different storyline.



ElHawk said:


> Ha-ha! Yay for confetti!
> 
> No, it's not that bad. You have to look at it this way: once you finally write that one book that hits it big with readers, you'll have SO MANY OTHER BOOKS available for all those eager new readers to buy. Future money, wooo!!!


ElHawk--Thanks for the dose of optimism. I'm not so confident, though, that a big book is inevitable. You need visibility and I'm not getting it. From Amazon or anyone else, despite 11 titles. As I mentioned earlier, none of my books are on anyone else's also-bought list.



JanThompson said:


> What is the proof of Amazon "limiting their sellers' ability to earn large amounts of money?"
> 
> I want to know for my own information.


Jan--There is empirical evidence of Amazon's limiting powers. The early days of Select were a bonanza for those who jumped in. Even up till April of this year, reaching #1 overall in the free store would invariably result in around 1500 post-free sales and quite likely, "legs" for your book. Then, Amazon went to work. Don't ask me why, don't ask me how, but read some of the experiences in the Select thread on KB, and you will see that around that time post-free sales (the very reason for joining Select in the first place) trailed off to next to nothing.


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## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

One more suggestion! It sounds like you have tried everything and the kitchen sink, but have you updated your keywords yet?

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,164578.0.html

I remember getting the KDP newsletter about this a couple weeks ago and kind of brushed it off going, "HA! I know about keywords. What are they talking about? N00bs."

BUT, they've changed things. I've been having an awful October sales-wise, went through last week and changed my keywords to the ones that were actually on the list that Amazon made for us that said, "Use these keywords! No really! THESE! Use them!" and things are sloooowly turning around. I'm showing up on "Top 100" lists not because my sales suddenly took off, but because my genres have been defined. And that exposure has led to a couple more sales a day, which ups me on the lists, rinse and repeat.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

I just reported Temptation Town as free on Apple. A single report won't make it free most of the time. Also, I think Amazon has wised up on "serial reporters" (e.g., I reported 4 different ones for other writers before I hopped over here to KB and saw your reply), so my reporting it may not do the trick. I think there's a thread here called "Make it free," for "you report mine, I'll report yours" trades. For the last title I set to perma-free, I had to round up some "civilian" reporting ninjas for it because it didn't work after I reported it and a few author buddies also reported it (assuming everyone's honest!). Even then, price matching is in Amazon's discretion


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Mike: Perma-free only works if it's perma-free on Amazon. You need it perma-free on Apple and B&N to get it free on Amazon. So you have to have it on both, and then have it reported several dozen times.

Perma-free as you have done it so far will accomplish nothing. Do it the way I recommend, with ad support to boost its visibility once free on all outlets, and it will work. Best to lose the built in resistance and do what's been enormously successful for countless authors. Philosophies that result in no sales are too expensive to keep.


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## David Thayer (Sep 7, 2012)

Mike, I'm certainly not in a position to give advice. I've been at this for just over a year and have sold maybe 500 books along the way. I have a new release in my "historical thriller" series and have all of my books in Select not so much because that's a great idea but because the alternatives are worse for me.

I've never landed a Bookbub, POI or ENT spot so I've had to improvise with promotion which I will continue to do every month. The summer months were my strongest ever especially July. Does that make any logical sense? 

i didn't think so either.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

BookBub is really a great tool, well worth the money.  I got 25,000 downloads in 48 hours when I did a free promo with them.  It kept my visibility on that book and another up very high for about six weeks afterward.  It's something to continually shoot for even if they reject your first application.  Remember you're in a very popular genre, so it may take you a few tries to get a BookBub spot.  Keep working at it...it pays off.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Mike Dennis said:


> But of course, that leads to the question, how did they sell so well out of the gate, leading Amazon to put its shoulder into a huge promotional effort behind their book.


Well, the answer to that is easy. A bunch of people wanted to buy those books.

Unfortunately, I am not nearly as gifted as other authors in the ability to predict what people want to buy and manage to get my muse to write that.

I really try. I do. But one of two things happen. Either I make assumptions that sound good in my head (but are actually stupid, like... "You know what's big right now? Superheroes! You know what else is big? Billionaire erotic romance! Let's mash them together!") or I just utterly cannot STOMACH the thought of writing what is popular (uggggh... contemporary romance). Whatever the case, I have yet to do it well or with much consistency. Perhaps, like writing, it is a skill that will come to me with time?</end of aside>

Anyway, yes, I'm convinced it is all very simple in theory:

1-Write a book lots of people want to read
2-Present it competently and attractively
3-Rule the world


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

blakebooks said:


> Books do not sell themselves. "Write more books" is the worst advice I could give anyone. That's why I don't counsel that. I say, develop a business plan that makes sense for your book selling business, and work that plan 25% of your time. Write more books the other 75%. If you only write more books, you will likely fail. With a lot of books nobody has ever heard of or read.
> 
> I don't want to beat the dead horse of paying qualified talent to edit and proof your books - there are some very vocal advocates of DIY who view that counsel as a personal slight rather than sensible advice, and I don't feel like fighting that battle. But if you haven't had decent editing and proofing, it's quite possible that what you have put out there is sabotaging your efforts, and any money saved in the short run is costing you a career in the long one. Take that for whatever it's worth.


Thank you.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

Mike Dennis said:


> I lowered the price of the first book in my Key West series to 99¢ a couple of months ago. I have a built-in resistance to perma-free, wherein I don't feel it would help. However, everyone on KB is high behind it, so I made the first book of my Las Vegas series perma-free on Apple, where I've given away a whopping 15 copies in two months. I notified Amazon of its perma-free status on Apple, but so far Amazon hasn't changed it to free. Meanwhile, the other books in the series are doing nothing at all.
> 
> It just seems to me that perma-free works only if you're already selling a lot of books. If I had a lot of visibility already, putting out the word that volume I of a series is free would really bring me major action. Through Select, I've already given away over 60,000 copies of the first Key West novel, all to no avail.


I think you answered the question to your problem. Setting one book free on Apple does not a permafree experiment make.

Look, to really do permafree right, you need to get it free everywhere. Nook. Apple, Kobo, and Amazon. You don't have control over Amazon, but you do everywhere else. Not every retailer will perform the same and it's different for every book. I do really well with my permafree on Amazon and Nook. Apple and Kobo? Not so much. However, I know people who do very well in both places with their permafreebies and not so much on BN or Amazon.

Do as Blake says. Commit to permafree everywhere. Once it is permafree everywhere get friends to report it free on Amazon for you. Work for it. Then try to get a BB ad. If that fails, get anywhere else to promote that freebie.

You have had some very helpful suggestions here in this thread and yet, you're still resistant. And that's the problem.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

I think the fundamental flaw with the logic here is that something--whether a formula, a method, a website or something else--is "the answer," the proverbial magic bullet, the "surefire" way to success, fame, riches, and virgin nubiles or whatever.

The truth is no one knows anything. The advice on this thread may be good, or it may be dead wrong. It may be right for some people and not for others. It may be right at this moment but not a month from now.

The only "surefire" thing is that if you don't write more books, you won't be able to publish more books. The only thing you can count on is you. Since writing more books is perhaps the only thing that is under your control, the advice to "write more books" is really just a way of saying to accept that you don't have control over anything but your current WIP, and move on.

As others have pointed out, that can actually be quite liberating once you accept it. As for myself, I'm relieved that there is no "surefire" way to do things in this business. If there were, everything would be streamlined by corporations, and there would be no room or opportunity for indies like ourselves.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

Joe Vasicek said:


> The only "surefire" thing is that if you don't write more books, you won't be able to publish more books. The only thing you can count on is you. Since writing more books is perhaps the only thing that is under your control, the advice to "write more books" is really just a way of saying to accept that you don't have control over anything but your current WIP, and move on.
> 
> As others have pointed out, that can actually be quite liberating once you accept it. As for myself, I'm relieved that there is no "surefire" way to do things in this business. If there were, everything would be streamlined by corporations, and there would be no room or opportunity for indies like ourselves.


Excellent. Well said. Thank you.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

Christa Wick said:


> I just reported Temptation Town as free on Apple. A single report won't make it free most of the time. Also, I think Amazon has wised up on "serial reporters" (e.g., I reported 4 different ones for other writers before I hopped over here to KB and saw your reply), so my reporting it may not do the trick. I think there's a thread here called "Make it free," for "you report mine, I'll report yours" trades. For the last title I set to perma-free, I had to round up some "civilian" reporting ninjas for it because it didn't work after I reported it and a few author buddies also reported it (assuming everyone's honest!). Even then, price matching is in Amazon's discretion


Thanks, Christa. I'll get on that "make it free" thread.



blakebooks said:


> Mike: Perma-free only works if it's perma-free on Amazon. You need it perma-free on Apple and B&N to get it free on Amazon. So you have to have it on both, and then have it reported several dozen times.
> 
> Perma-free as you have done it so far will accomplish nothing. Do it the way I recommend, with ad support to boost its visibility once free on all outlets, and it will work. Best to lose the built in resistance and do what's been enormously successful for countless authors. Philosophies that result in no sales are too expensive to keep.


Russell--Thanks for the necessary urging. I'm now on it.



David Thayer said:


> I've never landed a Bookbub, POI or ENT spot so I've had to improvise with promotion which I will continue to do every month. The summer months were my strongest ever especially July. Does that make any logical sense?
> 
> i didn't think so either.


David--I stopped trying to glean any logic out of all this long ago.



ElHawk said:


> BookBub is really a great tool, well worth the money. I got 25,000 downloads in 48 hours when I did a free promo with them. It kept my visibility on that book and another up very high for about six weeks afterward. It's something to continually shoot for even if they reject your first application. Remember you're in a very popular genre, so it may take you a few tries to get a BookBub spot. Keep working at it...it pays off.


ElHawk--I did a BookBub ad for the first novel in my Key West series. It got 37,000 freeloads, went to #1 in two categories and #1 in the overall free store. I'd been told this would result in over 1500 post-free sales and get legs for my book. Instead, I got only 350 sales, and it died after 2 weeks.

I tried another BookBub ad for the same book three months later, but they said it had to be priced at $2.99 or higher for (I think) 90 days prior to the ad, then discounted (or free) for a specific length of time only. My book had been at 99¢ for a couple of months when I tried this, so no dice.

The second and third books in the Key West series were rejected without comment.

Meanwhile, I tried the first book in my other series, but it didn't have enough reviews.



valeriec80 said:


> Anyway, yes, I'm convinced it is all very simple in theory:
> 
> 1-Write a book lots of people want to read
> 2-Present it competently and attractively
> 3-Rule the world


Valerie--You're right. Simple in theory. But slippery in execution (especially point #1).


----------



## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I think the fundamental flaw with the logic here is that something--whether a formula, a method, a website or something else--is "the answer," the proverbial magic bullet, the "surefire" way to success, fame, riches, and virgin nubiles or whatever.


Joe--Right. What has been touted as undeniable (the cause-effect gospel of "more books = more sales") is fundamentally flawed.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Mike Dennis said:


> Joe--Right. What has been touted as undeniable (the cause-effect gospel of "more books = more sales") is fundamentally flawed.


And just like the gospel, it's been misread and misinterpreted in all the wrong ways by everyone who refuses to accept it.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

DAWearmouth said:


> Amazon don't put in huge promotional efforts for indies, the sales continue because of ranking exposure, at least that was the case for us. Most of the advertising is taken up by the publisher accessed White Glove Programme, which we don't have. Amazon also push their own titles, and I totally understand that.
> 
> We sold 40,000 in just over a couple of months because of a few things. A marketing strategy for launch, ranking exposure, a good cover, price point and a bit of luck.


Not to take away anything you've done because I have great respect for all you've managed to do, but Amazon DID give you an internal marketing push that has helped keep your book high in the rankings. You may not be aware of everything the recommendation engine does for a title that's selling, but just because you don't necessarily see the effort that it's not happening. Everything from displaying your book in the alsobots of other books with similar price, genre and ranking (and adjusting that periodically to each new level of sales you reach) to recommendation emails are part of the visibility Amazon gives a book. Don't discount the extra visibility the AUTOMATED recommendation engine gives books that helps lead to even more organic growth. Once your (generic you) book hits the tipping point in the visibility algos, part of what keeps it buoyed IS Amazon "promotion."


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## olefish (Jan 24, 2012)

Mike Dennis said:


> Joe--Right. What has been touted as undeniable (the cause-effect gospel of "more books = more sales") is fundamentally flawed.


If you want to make a book free on BN you need to go through smashwords and set the price to zero there.


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## Darren Wearmouth (Jan 28, 2013)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Not to take away anything you've done because I have great respect for all you've managed to do, but Amazon DID give you an internal marketing push that has helped keep your book high in the rankings. You may not be aware of everything the recommendation engine does for a title that's selling, but just because you don't necessarily see the effort that it's not happening. Everything from displaying your book in the alsobots of other books with similar price, genre and ranking (and adjusting that periodically to each new level of sales you reach) to recommendation emails are part of the visibility Amazon gives a book. Don't discount the extra visibility the AUTOMATED recommendation engine gives books that helps lead to even more organic growth. Once your (generic you) book hits the tipping point in the visibility algos, part of what keeps it buoyed IS Amazon "promotion."


I'm not discounting it and think you're right. I suppose my point was, getting there is the hardest part, where you don't receive recommendations. The 'alsobots' seem reasonable to me, mine are all from my genre and are a mixed bag.

There's something else too, you don't have to sell half as many copies to maintain a reasonably high ranking as you do reaching it. If you get what I mean?

The rules are the same for everyone, I just looked at what was working in terms of promos, listened to the advice from people like Mr. Blake and Mr. Nobody and came up with a joined-up plan.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Something to take into account. As I have stated in an earlier post, the first book in my series was originally self-published. During that time sales were abysmal. Once I signed with my small press publisher they changed the cover and re-released it. Same book in in nearly every respect, other than another round of editing. But the cover was VERY different and much better. It took off from there.
I already had the second book written so it was released two months later. Sales were great. I was still writing the third book, so it took it took just over four months to release. Sales of the first two had dropped off by then. But that changed after the release. Not only did sales of Book Three do great, but the first two shot back up as well.
On to the fourth and latest. It was nearly six months. Sales had dropped off considerably on the other books by then, but it was a slower drop than before. Once Book Four was released, things went wild. People were clamoring for the next book by then. So far, even though a great many people who had been waiting, have purchased the new book, people who bought the first are buying the second, second the third, etc. So though there is a decline, it's not a drop off a cliff.
It's important to note, being that there were more people waiting for the next book, each new book ranked higher upon release than the previous. Each time the wait was longer allowing a further accumulation of readers who purchased to new one.
So by the time I release Book Five in March, my readership with have vastly increased, the release with be great, there will be another bump for the other four, the fifth will climb even higher than the last, and the overall sale will exceed anything I've done so far. I say this based on what has happen three times in a row, without fail.

Amazon emails my books as a recommendation. Why? I think it's likely because it sells and people appear to be enjoying it. It has a decent ranking, the reviews are genuine (both good and bad), the sales are consistent, and people who buy my books are buying other popular books. I know this not only through the "also bought" section, but thanks to Goodreads, as well as the author page where it groups authors together. I am consistently listed on Big Six author's amazon page and they mine.
Are there algorithms and programs? There must be. But the throwing enough crap to the wall and see what sticks approach is not a desirable long term strategy. Many of amazon's selections are based on ranking and past sales. A keen focus on marketing your best work may be better than spreading it too thinly. You may think that if you put out twenty books in a year, one is bound to get noticed. Well, you are one of thousands with that same attitude, and all I keep hearing is that it's not working. Perhaps if it hasn't worked for you, it's time for another approach.


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## xoxo (Sep 6, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> Anyway, yes, I'm convinced it is all very simple in theory:
> 
> 1-Write a book lots of people want to read
> 2-Present it competently and attractively
> 3-Rule the world


Or:

1. Write a book.
2. ?
3. Profit!


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

And then stuff just happens. Someone bought a paperback copy of each of my books last night. I hardly ever sell paper.
(I suspect my mother, but she already has copies)

Question about a post above: Is there a way to find out where your books appear as also-boughts? 
I've seen some of my fellow indies on the list on my book pages (and, on one memorable occasion, Buzz Aldrin), but how do you know where you show up?


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Quiss said:


> And then stuff just happens. Someone bought a paperback copy of each of my books last night. I hardly ever sell paper.
> (I suspect my mother, but she already has copies)
> 
> Question about a post above: Is there a way to find out where your books appear as also-boughts?
> I've seen some of my fellow indies on the list on my book pages (and, on one memorable occasion, Buzz Aldrin), but how do you know where you show up?


You just look at other books and check it out. I do it when I'm taking a break.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

BrianDAnderson said:


> You just look at other books and check it out. I do it when I'm taking a break.


Or google > "BOOK NAME" site:amazon.com < any page in the search results that isn't your book or author page likely is you in their also boughts.


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## Lady Vine (Nov 11, 2012)

markecooper said:


> I wonder if all the authors with dozens of pen names (that have one or two books under each one) are hurting themselves or helping themselves. I sometimes wonder if I am doing it wrong, but then I think about not earning enough to live on and stop wondering.  I am doing ok, and will never be rich, but I am happy.


I might be able to answer that. I currently have three pen names - one for erotica, and two others. The first one I launched is the most popular and has several titles under it. What's happened is, while I was writing for the other pen name/s (erotica doesn't take much time, so it doesn't present much of a problem), the one that has a real fan base, the one that brings in the most money, has suffered. I haven't released anything new under that name in months because I was writing longer works for the others. There are only so many ways you can split yourself before it starts to hinder each pen name's performance.

It has certainly been a learning experience. I never set out to write lesbian fiction exclusively; rather, I had a couple of stories I wanted to tell and it grew from there. But I've found I do enjoy it, and the readers are hungry for new content. So I'll make this one of my primary genres and lay the others to rest. I definitely think it's worth dialling back on them and just focusing on one or two. This is probably something writers have to see for themselves, though.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

TattooedWriter said:


> Also, there is a tipping point where the number of books starts to make a difference to overall sales. 11 titles isn't even close if you are relying on the number of titles visible to readers to be your main marketing tool.
> 
> After that, it's all math and algorithms.


But this isn't what I've found to be true for _our _ inventory. Jennifer has fully half the books in it. Over 50, most of those romance novels and box sets (only a handful of novellas and no short stories) and all "value-priced" (everything, including boxes, under $5). The algorithms don't care how many titles an author or publisher has. A large inventory _by itself _ does not catch the attention of the algos. The algos are applied against individual titles. The recommendation engine will sometimes link series together in their email sends, but it's clunky at best when it comes to Amazon's reco engine trying to promote series titles.

I've done the math for our inventory elsewhere on KB. Yes, we do have folk buying at least a couple of copies of all our titles each month, but there are some that, when ignored, only get a handful of sales per month. Overall, the inventory of books per author (54, 17, 10 and 9 are the number of our titles for our most prolific authors) performs well, but left to its own devices, it does not perform _optimally_. Keep in mind that the authors with 54 and 17 self-pubbed titles also have additional large backlists of Big 5 and HQN trad-pubbed titles we don't have the rights to, as well as trad-pubbed new releases. But while the sales coming in when the external promotion engine isn't churning is decent -- and some authors might be content with the amount of money generated if it means they don't have to promote -- when I did the math, for us at least, keeping the engine goosed results in us earning in 4 years what no promo would earn in 5. That's a difference of about $400,000.

Everyone has a different understanding of what "success" and "doing well" means. The bar for our hybrid bestselling authors is very high. It's a huge disappointment when they drop below a 5-figure month. The bar for our 3 "casual" authors with 2-5 titles out (me included) is pretty low, and there's cause for much rejoicing when their monthly income hits 4 figures. Finding ways to optimize earnings without necessarily writing more is just as valid an option as continually putting more words on paper.

In the end, IMO, it's all about how we personally -- and realistically -- define success. For some authors who want only to write, then taking an extra year to earn their wages by just writing is preferable to going out and doing the work of promoting (the marathon approach). For other authors, putting the extra non-writing work in and earning additional money _now _ and in sprints (which doesn't discount the long tail of the marathon), that's the way to go. I prefer the latter approach. That doesn't make it the right approach for anyone else, but it's the right approach for the results I'm aiming at for myself and the other SMP authors. Of course, keep in mind that our bestselling authors are all on the high side of 60 and that "marathon" for them may have quite a different meaning than it does for folk under 40.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

PiiaBre said:


> Or:
> 
> 1. Write a book.
> 2. ?
> 3. Profit!


What? I thought everyone else's end game was world domination as well.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I have a very small example of how rebranding/repackaging can work.  
This is what I did

My title "Gods of Chenoweth" never sold that well. Last month I sold two copies, the month before four.

1) Delete ego
2) Ask at Kboards for advice. Join Patty Jansen's "why isn't this book selling" thing. Re-read book to see if I still like it
3) Redid cover (twice)
4) Changed title to "Flight to Exile" (story is both about escape and moving to another planet)
5) Changed blurb (ongoing)
6) Took out of Select and uploaded to other vendors.

October so far: 7 sales at amazon, one at Kobo

I may only have gone from 2 to 8 sales, but for others this may well be 20 to 80

Worth the effort for a product that represents a big part of yourself and your time.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Yeah, just throwing a bunch of crap at the wall is a terrible, terrible strategy.  Crap has a very low chance of ever sticking, even by the barrelful.

The only thing you throw anywhere should be books people actually want to read.

I think it's popular advice because "write more books" is such a nice, friendly way of saying "learn how to write books people actually want to read."  Of course, it's not just writing more that gets you to that point.  It's seeking out good critiques and learning how to apply a critique to your work to improve it.  Not the easiest skill to learn, but it's kind of crucial.


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## RaeC (Aug 20, 2013)

I have a hard time believing people are just taking the "write more books" advice in a vacuum. That seems a bit disingenuous. With all things being equal, after all of the planning and the marketing and the reading and the dreaming, the only thing you can truly control is your word count and the amount of books that have your name. You control your exposure. Everything else is uncertain. But, once again, everything being equal, I'm willing to wager that the writer with the most (positive) reader exposure gets more sales.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

AdrianC said:


> I have a hard time believing people are just taking the "write more books" advice in a vacuum. That seems a bit disingenuous. With all things being equal, after all of the planning and the marketing and the reading and the dreaming, the only thing you can truly control is your word count and the amount of books that have your name. You control your exposure. Everything else is uncertain. But, once again, everything being equal, I'm willing to wager that the writer with the most (positive) reader exposure gets more sales.


But simply having more work doesn't get you exposure. Readers are savvy. They are very aware that there are thousands of indie writers pumping out tens of thousands of books, one after another. More books simply becomes amazon background noise that most customers ignore. You can have one hundred titles out and it won't matter if you don't have a real marketing strategy in place. 
I've seen some very creative ways of gaining recognition that, though a bit unorthodox, were effective. One lady I know held a book signing in her back yard. She put up signs around town in shops on lamp posts etc., and ended up selling out ( I think she sold about fifty books in one afternoon). From that she received more than thirty reviews and a slot in the highest rated in her genre. From there she sold several hundred books on amazon and B&N in just a few weeks. Another went to every library within fifty miles and convinced many of them to host a reading / signing. This resulted in several hundred sales at the events, and many more after the fact. I personally have went to schools, local TV, cable access, local papers, local book stores, real grass roots stuff. And I'm still doing it.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

BrianDAnderson said:


> I personally have went to schools, local TV, cable access, local papers, local book stores, real grass roots stuff. And I'm still doing it.


I got invited to speak to a class for gifted kids about becoming and being a writer.
Alas, not exactly the age group for my titles  I wonder if the parents will be there....


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Quiss said:


> I got invited to speak to a class for gifted kids about becoming and being a writer.
> Alas, not exactly the age group for my titles  I wonder if the parents will be there....


The first time I spoke to a class my intention was to talk about the writing process, character development, editing, and so forth. Two days before I was to go, I read an idiotic post about young writers clogging up the slush pile with their amateurish work. Basically, the blogger stated that young writers have no business trying to get published because they lack the skills and life experience to produce good work. In an instant the topics I was planning to speak about changed.
Instead, I spoke about a good story -v-skilled writing. I explained that if they had a great story, no amount of elegant prose could beat it. If they lacked the respective "chops" there are any number of people to help them along. The response was tremendous. The students engaged and asked very poignant questions. It was a wonderful experience.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

BrianDAnderson said:


> Instead, I spoke about a good story -v-skilled writing. I explained that if they had a great story, no amount of elegant prose could beat it. If they lacked the respective "chops" there are any number of people to help them along. The response was tremendous. The students engaged and asked very poignant questions. It was a wonderful experience.


Yes, I was more thinking along the lines of "read lots, write lots" rather than focusing on publishing or craft. Also about creating peer groups to share what they'd written etc. Hopefully if some of them get busy trading their zombie stories they'll be too busy trading insults or pictures of their bodies parts via social media


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Not to take away anything you've done because I have great respect for all you've managed to do, but Amazon DID give you an internal marketing push that has helped keep your book high in the rankings. You may not be aware of everything the recommendation engine does for a title that's selling, but just because you don't necessarily see the effort that it's not happening. Everything from displaying your book in the alsobots of other books with similar price, genre and ranking (and adjusting that periodically to each new level of sales you reach) to recommendation emails are part of the visibility Amazon gives a book. Don't discount the extra visibility the AUTOMATED recommendation engine gives books that helps lead to even more organic growth. Once your (generic you) book hits the tipping point in the visibility algos, part of what keeps it buoyed IS Amazon "promotion."


Phoenix--Right. A new author can't possibly sell 40,000 books in two months without a huge internal push from Amazon. My titles are not even on anyone else's also-bought lists, only my own, a formula which is designed to get me absolutely nowhere. I wrote Amazon asking about this, and they gave me some FAQ-type textbook answer. I wrote back, asking for a real reason why my books are not on anyone else's also-boughts and they kissed me off.



TattooedWriter said:


> Has anybody actually said 'surefire'? Writing more books is the best chance you can give yourself of increasing sales. As Joe says, it's one of the few things you have control of...the number of books you publish.
> 
> Also, there is a tipping point where the number of books starts to make a difference to overall sales. 11 titles isn't even close if you are relying on the number of titles visible to readers to be your main marketing tool.
> 
> After that, it's all math and algorithms.


TW--They may not have used the word "surefire", but they certainly implied it quite strongly. Go back on KB and read some of the thoughts on writing more books. You'll see what I mean.

Eleven titles isn't close to the number I need to increase sales? What is the number? Is it "surefire"? Is there a number to begin with? I doubt it. There's a guy on this very thread (DA Wearmouth) who has sold 40,000 copies of his first book in _two months_. He sure didn't need to write more books to get sales. Amazon's doing it for him.



BrianDAnderson said:


> Amazon emails my books as a recommendation. Why? I think it's likely because it sells and people appear to be enjoying it. It has a decent ranking, the reviews are genuine (both good and bad), the sales are consistent, and people who buy my books are buying other popular books. I know this not only through the "also bought" section, but thanks to Goodreads, as well as the author page where it groups authors together. I am consistently listed on Big Six author's amazon page and they mine.
> Are there algorithms and programs? There must be. But the throwing enough crap to the wall and see what sticks approach is not a desirable long term strategy. Many of amazon's selections are based on ranking and past sales. A keen focus on marketing your best work may be better than spreading it too thinly. You may think that if you put out twenty books in a year, one is bound to get noticed. Well, you are one of thousands with that same attitude, and all I keep hearing is that it's not working. Perhaps if it hasn't worked for you, it's time for another approach.


Brian--If your traditional publisher released your second book two months after they put out your first one, I think that may be a world record. When I was trad-pubbed, I waited nearly 2 years for my book to come out.

With all due respect, though, your books are through the roof because Amazon promoted them heavily. And they did that because you probably sold an astounding number of books in an inordinately brief period following release. It really has nothing to do with any formula you've come up with, because you're at that very enviable point now where everything you put out will be purchased by your large fan base. And Amazon will see to it by promoting you internally every single time, relentlessly beating the drum for you, driving sales and shoving your book into a three- or four-figure ranking until you put out another one.

There are a lot of indie writers out there like yourself, who have sold tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of books thanks to Amazon's internal promotion. But the promotion came about because of your great initial burst of sales. How you did that, I don't know, but I do know that I didn't do it. So that's why I'm where I am today. Not because I haven't written enough books or because I haven't self-promoted my books. I just didn't get those big sales right off the bat.



PiiaBre said:


> Or:
> 
> 1. Write a book.
> 2. ?
> 3. Profit!


PiiaBre--That's it! LOL!



Quiss said:


> And then stuff just happens. Someone bought a paperback copy of each of my books last night. I hardly ever sell paper.
> (I suspect my mother, but she already has copies)
> 
> Question about a post above: Is there a way to find out where your books appear as also-boughts?
> I've seen some of my fellow indies on the list on my book pages (and, on one memorable occasion, Buzz Aldrin), but how do you know where you show up?


Quiss--Try http://www.yasiv.com


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## MQ (Jan 5, 2011)

Mike, I'm in the same boat as you, so I understand what you are going through.  Having tried EVERYTHING and not seeing much sales has been disappointing to say the least (my last hope is Bookbub).  Anyways, in my case, it could be my ethnic name that might be off-putting readers from buying the books but that's another matter.  I think your covers are AMAZING and you have good reviews.  I haven't read any of your books yet but I would say please don't stop writing.  You are eventually going to find a system that works very well for you, but the only way for that to happen is to keep trying (that's what I keep telling myself anyways).  Keep at it.  Eventually the wall that's holding you back will come down. It has to.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

Mobashar Qureshi said:


> Mike, I'm in the same boat as you, so I understand what you are going through. Having tried EVERYTHING and not seeing much sales has been disappointing to say the least (my last hope is Bookbub). Anyways, in my case, it could be my ethnic name that might be off-putting readers from buying the books but that's another matter. I think your covers are AMAZING and you have good reviews. I haven't read any of your books yet but I would say please don't stop writing. You are eventually going to find a system that works very well for you, but the only way for that to happen is to keep trying (that's what I keep telling myself anyways). Keep at it. Eventually the wall that's holding you back will come down. It has to.


Mobashar--Thanks for the encouraging words. Much appreciated.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Mobashar Qureshi said:


> Anyways, in my case, it could be my ethnic name that might be off-putting readers from buying the books but that's another matter.


I hope not. If you'll pardon me for saying so, I personally think the message given out by your covers is much stronger than any assumptions that people might make from your name. Your covers are very strong.


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## Sarah Stimson (Oct 9, 2013)

I agree with Lydniz - I really hope it's not your name putting people off, Mobashar.  That's horrible and very depressing.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Mike Dennis said:


> Brian--If your traditional publisher released your second book two months after they put out your first one, I think that may be a world record. When I was trad-pubbed, I waited nearly 2 years for my book to come out.
> 
> With all due respect, though, your books are through the roof because Amazon promoted them heavily. And they did that because you probably sold an astounding number of books in an inordinately brief period following release. It really has nothing to do with any formula you've come up with, because you're at that very enviable point now where everything you put out will be purchased by your large fan base. And Amazon will see to it by promoting you internally every single time, relentlessly beating the drum for you, driving sales and shoving your book into a three- or four-figure ranking until you put out another one.
> 
> There are a lot of indie writers out there like yourself, who have sold tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of books thanks to Amazon's internal promotion. But the promotion came about because of your great initial burst of sales. How you did that, I don't know, but I do know that I didn't do it. So that's why I'm where I am today. Not because I haven't written enough books or because I haven't self-promoted my books. I just didn't get those big sales right off the bat.


But that's exactly what I said. Amazon makes it's selections based on ranking and past performance. My first book did well, so they selected my work based on what my work has already done without them beating the drum for me. In fact, they approached my publisher not long ago and asked permission to do a amazon wide sales promotion on Book One. Naturally the answer was yes. They told us flat out that it was based on how many it had already sold. It went very well and I was happy to have been chosen. 
But it goes directly back to the root of the issue. it started because of one book. Not dozens. I worked very hard to get that first book noticed. I wasn't concerned about how many books I had out. I believed in my story and put tremendous effort into its marketing. Luckily it paid off.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Mike: As an example of how to wring sales from a perma-free, consider JET. Today it's featured in BB. A year after going free. I expect it will climb pretty high. That will accomplish a couple of things: first, it will get into a lot of new readers' hands - hands that hadn't gotten it in the last year, for whatever reason. Second, sales of the rest of the series will naturally swell for two to four weeks, possibly longer. That sets me up to run another successful promo using some of the second tier free pubs in December and still be ranked in the 300's by then, meaning I'm seeing 400-500 or so a day free downloads, with a roughly 12-13% conversion rate to book 2, and only a 10% dropoff to books 3-5. End of December I'll release book 6 in the series, which will garner some more interest in the series as a whole. Feb I'll do another series of promos for the free book, and in April, run another BB for it, if they'll have it again. Using this rinse and repeat mechanism, I'll use a loss leader book to give away at least another 100K or more books, resulting in sales of roughly 12K of book 2, and 10-11K of each of book 3-6 over the next six months.

On a series that's a year old. 

The reason so many are high on perma-free is because it's the best mechanism a skilled author with a decent series has to turbo their sales and put them on the map. The writing has to be there, but yours is, so I'd advise you to put book 1 into Smashwords today at free, have everyone you know report it once it goes free (set the price at Amazon at $2.99, BTW, as that appears to be a price where they don't take you off free as often), and then promote the hell out of book 1 as you write book 4. That's coming from a guy who has sold a lot of books using this method. Just saying.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> (set the price at Amazon at $2.99, BTW, as that appears to be a price where they don't take you off free as often),


Can you elaborate on that? I thought your chances of Amazon setting you perma-free are better if you're priced a 99 cents.
Also, did BookBub not state that they're cutting back on promoting perma-free books?


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## Darren Wearmouth (Jan 28, 2013)

Mike Dennis said:


> Phoenix--Right. A new author can't possibly sell 40,000 books in two months without a huge internal push from Amazon. My titles are not even on anyone else's also-bought lists, only my own, a formula which is designed to get me absolutely nowhere. I wrote Amazon asking about this, and they gave me some FAQ-type textbook answer. I wrote back, asking for a real reason why my books are not on anyone else's also-boughts and they kissed me off.
> 
> TW--They may not have used the word "surefire", but they certainly implied it quite strongly. Go back on KB and read some of the thoughts on writing more books. You'll see what I mean.
> 
> Eleven titles isn't close to the number I need to increase sales? What is the number? Is it "surefire"? Is there a number to begin with? I doubt it. There's a guy on this very thread (DA Wearmouth) who has sold 40,000 copies of his first book in _two months_. He sure didn't need to write more books to get sales. Amazon's doing it for him.


They didn't pick me out at random, and I paid them no money. I had the book at 0.99 promo price from launch (six weeks) and paid for a string of advertising around it. I gave my book what I considered the best opportunity for exposure. Once any book becomes popular in the genre, why wouldn't Amazon promote it? If it was my business, I'd do the same thing.

I think you may have already said it yourself, but sales right off the bat are key.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Mike Dennis said:


> So that's why I'm where I am today. Not because I haven't written enough books or because I haven't self-promoted my books. I just didn't get those big sales right off the bat.


Maybe I'm hearing a "tone" here that's not there. It's hard to tell from something that's written and not spoken. So, if I'm misunderstanding you, then just ignore me.

I think, within myself anyway, the toughest thing about my writing career is often the bitterness. I sometimes reread portions of my old books, and I'm blown away by myself, and I think, "This is ridiculous. I'm really effing good at this. There is no reason on god's green earth why I'm not rich and famous." (That's not to say that I don't also have periods of soul-crushing doubt during which I'm pretty much convinced that everything I do is crap, of course.)

Anyway, during periods of time like that, I can get a little bit of a chip on my shoulder and I have lashed out (on this very forum, in fact) at people who I perceive to be more successful than me for having the following attitude, "I sell well, therefore I must be doing things right, and let me tell you how I do them." It's easy for me to infer the corollary, which is, "You are not selling as well as me, therefore, you are doing something wrong, and I am superior to you." (insert evil laugh). So, I'll response to that unspoken corollary (which I rather imagine most of these people don't even think) and get kind of defensive. Because, you know, I work really hard. And I get insulted that people are implying I'm not good enough.

When they're actually really not. I'm just thinking they are. (And I'm sorry if I tongue-lashed anybody reading this thread. My bad.) It's worse for me when my sales are down. Some people combat this by not looking at their sales--I'm not a runner. I gotta face my fears and my difficulties. It's one thing for me to intellectually know that my sales do not translate to my worth as a being. It's another thing for me to believe it. And I think I'm getting better. (And 5HTP is also helpful.)

Anyway, wrapping up this ridiculously personal post, I guess I'd like to say this. I figure that every hard thing you face in life gets better with practice. So, in some ways, I'm kind of glad that my writing career has never been a solid upswing and has never settled at some comfortable level of earnings. Because I know that I can handle it, you know? I know that--even if it upsets me--it doesn't stop me from writing or from having fun making things up. And that's something that Amazon algorithms and the whims of my readers can never take away from me.

**Final note: I also want to be careful not to denigrate people who have been successful. They have, generally speaking, worked very hard to get there, and personally, I wouldn't want anyone to get the impression that saying that luck plays a role in success means that they don't deserve all the money, accolades, and good stuff that they get, because I am sure they do.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Quiss: They are cutting back on perma-free, but as Select fails even the most obstinate authors, the appetite to pay money to advertise free is waning. My thinking is that if they get an offer on a book that's just gone perma-free, it stands a good chance of getting picked up. Although nothing is a given, and that can change at any time. 

On the pricing, I've noticed that when I had JET priced at $3.99 and $4.99, they'd take me off free about once every 60 days or so. I tried it at $2.99 and it's been fine for four months. Leading me to conclude that's the ticket. Again, for now. Because everything can change on a dime.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

This is such a curious thread. More books increases your exposure, your options, your chances for success. It's the *best* way to do those things, but not the only way. I've never seen anyone say it was a surefire path to success or that you should only write books and ignore everything else.

Look at this way, is not writing books going to help?


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Monique said:


> This is such a curious thread. More books increases your exposure, your options, your chances for success. It's the *best* way to do those things, but not the only way. I've never seen anyone say it was a surefire path to success or that you should only write books and ignore everything else.
> 
> Look at this way, is not writing books going to help?


No. But thinking that if you churn out twenty books in a year (and I won't even go into the quality doing that would produce, considering the length of a typical editing and proofing process) and that's what's going to get you noticed, won't help either. Readers aren't stupid. They check out authors. They look at our amazon pages and see what we've written. If they see an author has thirty books out, the oldest being less than two years since publication, and a combined total of ten reviews on all books, they think "another indie trying to make a quick buck". It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's the perception that counts.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

BrianDAnderson said:


> Readers aren't stupid. They check out authors. They look at our amazon pages and see what we've written. If they see an author has thirty books out, the oldest being less than two years since publication, and a combined total of ten reviews on all books, they think "another indie trying to make a quick buck". It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's the perception that counts.


Really?

I'm just trying to imagine myself reading a book, loving it, going to the author page, seeing they released fifteen books in a year and saying 'oh no, I can't possibly read any more of this author's books, they write far too many'.

Has any reader in history ever complained that their favourite writer writes _too many_ books? Did Asimov fans say 'oh God, he's written five hundred books, the others must suck'?

I stopped being an Iain Banks fan some years ago, but, when I was, I hated having to wait a year or so for the next one (even though he said he only spent about three months writing each one). And just imagine all the stories we've lost because he died so young and released books so slowly.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Mobashar Qureshi said:


> Mike, I'm in the same boat as you, so I understand what you are going through. Having tried EVERYTHING and not seeing much sales has been disappointing to say the least (my last hope is Bookbub). Anyways, in my case, it could be my ethnic name that might be off-putting readers from buying the books but that's another matter. I think your covers are AMAZING and you have good reviews. I haven't read any of your books yet but I would say please don't stop writing. You are eventually going to find a system that works very well for you, but the only way for that to happen is to keep trying (that's what I keep telling myself anyways). Keep at it. Eventually the wall that's holding you back will come down. It has to.


Take your next book or one of your current ones and put it out under a pen name. Wait 3 months and tally the results.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

blakebooks said:


> Mike: As an example of how to wring sales from a perma-free,


And remember that you can put the price to $0.99 on the book you want perma-free. This will increase sales on Amazon, hopefully, and the more sales that come up the faster you'll get perma-free status.

When you get perma-free status you can go to your bookshelf and change the price to whatever you want. I'd put it at $3.99 for a novel, although I've seen some at $7.99. This will be the price that's crossed out telling readers how much they saved. Don't worry about the price going to $3.99; Amazon will check and keep you at $0.


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

markecooper said:


> I have no evidence to back my opinion only my own experience, and it seems to fly in the face of many experts on kboards who suggest that writing in multiple genres under the same name is "bad practice" or idea. I use my own name and think about branding of me rather than my books. I am the brand. When readers buy my stuff, they are either buying fantasy, space opera, or paranormal fantasy primarily, but they know that I like to twist my paranormal into a sort of sci-fi/fantasy mash up cross genre thing. No complaints yet.
> 
> I am making a living rather than a killing.
> 
> I wonder if all the authors with dozens of pen names (that have one or two books under each one) are hurting themselves or helping themselves. I sometimes wonder if I am doing it wrong, but then I think about not earning enough to live on and stop wondering.  I am doing ok, and will never be rich, but I am happy.


Thank you for bringing this up.

I am also at a quandary, as to whether to get the pen name for a completely new type of genre for me (commercial dystopian YA), or to stick with Vera Nazarian. At present, I am best known for historical flavored, old-fashioned, slow-paced, introspective, style-heavily literary/traditional fantasy (like *Cobweb Bride*). But the series I will be writing next year will be a very commercially oriented, contemporary and fast paced, high-concept dystopia.

I am torn between continuing to build and expand my present brand or just reinventing myself with the new pen name.

Hard, critical decisions ahead.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> Maybe I'm hearing a "tone" here that's not there. It's hard to tell from something that's written and not spoken. So, if I'm misunderstanding you, then just ignore me.


I was just going over a Book 2 last night, because, well, I don't have money for editing so have to keep doing it myself. I was also surprised by how well the story flowed, and that on something I'd written 3 years ago. The book's a lot better than I've been thinking recently. Maybe it'll take off one day, maybe not. I'm not going to sit there and devote all my thought to book #2 when book #16 is out. Could that be the reason for my lackluster sales, perhaps.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

BrianDAnderson said:


> No. But thinking that if you churn out twenty books in a year (and I won't even go into the quality doing that would produce, considering the length of a typical editing and proofing process) and that's what's going to get you noticed, won't help either. Readers aren't stupid. They check out authors. They


Authors that are only putting books out 1 or 2 times a year because of slow editing are going to lose out long-term. Editors can do stuff in a week or 2, and faster if they devote all their time to your work. It doesn't take a year to edit a book, at least not anymore, and never should have.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Edward M. Grant said:


> Really?
> 
> I'm just trying to imagine myself reading a book, loving it, going to the author page, seeing they released fifteen books in a year and saying 'oh no, I can't possibly read any more of this author's books, they write far too many'.
> 
> ...


You know what else people don't say? "Hey, that author I've never heard of needs to write more books." We're not talking about well established writers and they have zero bearing here. And I'm not saying "Don't write books." Not once did I say that writing is bad or that a writer should not publish. All I am saying is that more is not always better. Sometimes it's just more.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

Vera Nazarian said:


> I am torn between continuing to build and expand my present brand or just reinventing myself with the new pen name.


Kris Rusch had a great blog post on the subject a couple of weeks ago.

I'm eliminating pen names at the moment because I realized there was no way I could release something new under each name each month, and that was the best way to keep sales going. Slowly moving them all over to this name makes more sense.


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

BrianDAnderson said:


> All I am saying is that more is not always better. Sometimes it's just more.


Of course more is not always better: writing more books no-one wants to read doesn't help. But you were implying that readers would refuse to buy books by an author solely because they'd written a lot.

I'll rarely even look at an author page unless I've already read a book by that author and liked it, and, if I get to that point, I want to see more books there, not less.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

Lady Starlight said:


> I think what happens is that somehow said person(s) book gets put in some sort of rotation in the system where it gets shown to a large amount of people daily thus resulting in sales. In essence, they get visibility everyday so they get easy sales without having to try at all. If their book remains long enough in this state they will have made thousands and thousands of dollars and accumulated a fan base.


I thought I'd chime in to ease your mind a little that you are in fact, correct. The second book in my Rook and Ronin series has never been on sale. It was released in late July at $3.99 and has stayed at that price. It sold several thousand books, but it was really slacking off in September. So to get ready for book three in that series, I put it (MANIC), AND Tragic, to 99 cents.

I sold more books in one hour after it going on sale than I did all month. I did not announce it to anyone. I was gonna let it sit until Wednesday and them promo the sale prices on Tragic and Manic together with the new release of Panic. (This was last Monday) By the next morning it sold several hundred books with no input from me (or anyone else that I could tell) at all.

So, yeah. I have nothing else to add other than, if you get the sweet treatment, life is good. I personally think it was a wish-list thing. I think there were a crapload of people who had Manic on their wish-list and the email was automatically triggered. Because it happened immediately.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Greg Strandberg said:


> Authors that are only putting books out 1 or 2 times a year because of slow editing are going to lose out long-term. Editors can do stuff in a week or 2, and faster if they devote all their time to your work. It doesn't take a year to edit a book, at least not anymore, and never should have.


There's more to it than that. A real edit almost always involves more writing and takes time and thought. If there need to be any rewrites, that needs to be looked at as well. Then there's proofing. One round is not enough. I put it through four, and I still think it's not enough. The time it takes for four people to read a book carefully enough to do a decent job (and I pay them to be sure that they do) is about three to four weeks. I've tried to have all four proofers read through the book at once, and it never works out. One after another was the only way I could ensure as many typo's and ,mistakes were caught as possible. I then go over it at least twice more myself. During this time I have sent it to three beta readers. If they all three agree that there's a problem, I need to consider addressing it. 
Once that's all done...then I release.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

BrianDAnderson said:


> There's more to it than that. A real edit almost always involves more writing and takes time and thought. If there need to be any rewrites, that needs to be looked at as well. Then there's proofing. One round is not enough. I put it through four, and I still think it's not enough. The time it takes for four people to read a book carefully enough to do a decent job (and I pay them to be sure that they do) is about three to four weeks. I've tried to have all four proofers read through the book at once, and it never works out. One after another was the only way I could ensure as many typo's and ,mistakes were caught as possible. I then go over it at least twice more myself. During this time I have sent it to three beta readers. If they all three agree that there's a problem, I need to consider addressing it.
> Once that's all done...then I release.


I have a system - four-six weeks to write, four to six weeks with the editor, two days to revise, two weeks to proof - I only proof if it had a lot of additions in the re-writes.

I'm in a monthly release cycle at this point. I just sent my December release to the editor and now I'm working on January's release. I just released this month's book, which I wrote back in August, and next month I'm releasing an omnibus so it's just formatting and covers, which are done. I'll finish my current WIP on November 21st, then start three projects, one to be released in Feb (novella spin-off) and one in March (full-length spin-off) and a SF book that is planned for June. (SF takes a lot longer than romance, so I only write two a year)

I've found a new release is the indeed the key to keeping Amazon interested in giving you perks.

And networking. I market for at least three hours a day. And no I'm not better off writing for those hours. I think my 2.5K-5K a day is sufficient.


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## MQ (Jan 5, 2011)

Lydniz said:


> I hope not. If you'll pardon me for saying so, I personally think the message given out by your covers is much stronger than any assumptions that people might make from your name. Your covers are very strong.


Thank you. I'm glad you like the covers 



Sarah Stimson said:


> I agree with Lydniz - I really hope it's not your name putting people off, Mobashar. That's horrible and very depressing.


I hope so too or else that would be horrible and depressing 



Greg Strandberg said:


> Take your next book or one of your current ones and put it out under a pen name. Wait 3 months and tally the results.


Yes, I'm seriously thinking of doing that, just to see if that is the case.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

JanneCO said:


> I have a system - four-six weeks to write, four to six weeks with the editor, two days to revise, two weeks to proof - I only proof if it had a lot of additions in the re-writes.
> 
> I'm in a monthly release cycle at this point. I just sent my December release to the editor and now I'm working on January's release. I just released this month's book, which I wrote back in August, and next month I'm releasing an omnibus so it's just formatting and covers, which are done. I'll finish my current WIP on November 21st, then start three projects, one to be released in Feb (novella spin-off) and one in March (full-length spin-off) and a SF book that is planned for June. (SF takes a lot longer than romance, so I only write two a year)
> 
> ...


I can write a full length novel in about 8-12 weeks. I'm trying a new editing system where I send my book in thirds. I hope to conserve time that way. But the proofing and beta reading...it is what it is. I don't want a proofer blowing through my book as fast as they can. It defeats the purpose. And as I said. I tried letting them all do it at once, and too much was missed. When they did it consecutively it was worlds better. 
I would add that when I started, I thought editing and proofing was the the same thing. I didn't understand that an edited book still needs proofing.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

JanneCO said:


> I've found a new release is the indeed the key to keeping Amazon interested in giving you perks.


See, if you are already getting perqs, then "write more books" is the way to keep getting them. That makes sense.

However, that does not address the OP's problem. He isn't getting those perqs. Writing more books, all on its own, won't get him those perqs.


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

I need to stop reading this thread; I'm getting deeply depressed again, right when the other thread had sorta dug me out a little. I can't sit here feeling like a failure. It's just not helping.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

Cherise Kelley said:


> See, if you are already getting perqs, then "write more books" is the way to keep getting them. That makes sense.
> 
> However, that does not address the OP's problem. He isn't getting those perqs. Writing more books, all on its own, won't get him those perqs.


Yes, you're right. He needs to market the hell out of himself. He should be spending SIX hours a day on markietng. Sorry to those of you who hate that part of business. But that's how it's done. He should have thousands of friends and fans on Goodreads. He should have thousands of followers on Twitter. He should have thousands of people Liking his FB page and he should post to all of these places daily. He should have a small army of dedicated fans shouting out about his books. He should have another small army of authors in the same genre, also shouting out about his books.

This is what we do to get sales - this is what we have that 'you' don't.

I'm no where near Dalya, I'm small time compared to her. But this is what it takes, folks. Sorry. That's the truth.


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

Hmm. That's not really what I do.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

JanneCO said:


> Yes, you're right. He needs to market the hell out of himself. He should be spending SIX hours a day on markietng. Sorry to those of you who hate that part of business. But that's how it's done. He should have thousands of friends and fans on Goodreads. He should have thousands of followers on Twitter. He should have thousands of people Liking his FB page and he should post to all of these places daily. He should have a small army of dedicated fans shouting out about his books. He should have another small army of authors in the same genre, also shouting out about his books.
> 
> This is what we do to get sales - this is what we have that 'you' don't.
> 
> I'm no where near Dalya, I'm small time compared to her. But this is what it takes, folks. Sorry. That's the truth.


I'm doomed...


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

I'm glad that's working for you, JA. Clearly, it's working well. However, none of the successful authors I know spend 6 hours a day marketing. Not even close. There are other paths. That said, no marketing *at all* makes for a tough road.


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

Edward M. Grant said:


> Kris Rusch had a great blog post on the subject a couple of weeks ago.
> 
> I'm eliminating pen names at the moment because I realized there was no way I could release something new under each name each month, and that was the best way to keep sales going. Slowly moving them all over to this name makes more sense.


Thanks, I'll go look at Kris's blog.

Good point!


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

Monique said:


> I'm glad that's working for you, JA. Clearly, it's working well. However, none of the successful authors I know spend 6 hours a day marketing. Not even close. There are other paths. That said, no marketing *at all* makes for a tough road.


I don't market six hours a day, but I do at least three. I like it so I continue to do it. I don't have to do it. And if people are selling they don't either.

But this guys has written a lot of freaking books and he's selling next to nothing. That's a problem that has an answer. Part of it is marketing. Part of it might be his writing. I'm not sure, I've never read his books. But clearly, what he's doing is not working. So you know, if writers are in this position, then instead of sticking their heads in the sand and saying well, so and so doesn't market... (and they probably do, just not the same way I do) so I don't have to either, they should learn how to do some of this stuff.

My number one marketing tool is the Rafflecopter.

Everyone should go make a RC right now if you're *not selling*. Set it up with options that will promote your social networks, give away a stupid $10 gift card and post your contest to all your social network sites, and see what happens. I predict an increase in everything. It might not be huge, but it will grow you.

What? No social network sites? How are you gonna get the word out? Well, the answer is - You're not. NOT. Read it again... NOT.

You have to have a presence. You have to be visible. Now, if you're in certain genres you can hire bloggers to promote the heck out of you instead, but still, if you're not using that to create your own network of readers, then what's the point? Your visibility is only as good as your current promo.

I sure wish I had a BookBub ad for my new release this week. But guess what? I didn't. That sure sucks. But I still sold books because I had all these things as a back up. And I got all those things by *marketing*.

I've been on this board for about two years. I've been publishing for one. And time and time again I see the same thing - people insist they do nothing and the book fairy comes and sells their books for them.

That's awesome. I don't have a book fairy. And I'm betting most of you don't either. So instead of waiting around for one to appear, and in *conjunction with *writing more books, I learned to be my own book fairy.

AND EDIT TO ADD: ALL - *ALL* bestselling authors have a ton of fans. That's just truth. And that means they have a plethora of ways to connect with those fans to sell books and shoot the sh*t. That's called marketing.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

MeiLinMiranda said:


> I need to stop reading this thread; I'm getting deeply depressed again, right when the other thread had sorta dug me out a little. I can't sit here feeling like a failure. It's just not helping.


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

JanneCO said:


> I don't market six hours a day, but I do at least three. I like it so I continue to do it. I don't have to do it. And if people are selling they don't either.
> 
> But this guys has written a lot of freaking books and he's selling next to nothing. That's a problem that has an answer. Part of it is marketing. Part of it might be his writing. I'm not sure, I've never read his books. But clearly, what he's doing is not working. So you know, if writers are in this position, then instead of sticking their heads in the sand and saying well, so and so doesn't market... (and they probably do, just not the same way I do) so I don't have to either, they should learn how to do some of this stuff.
> 
> ...


Okay, well I'd agree with just about all of that. 

And he's got a big enough backlist it might make sense to go super-heavy on active promotion to try and uplift everything. But I don't think that level of hustle is absolutely necessary. I think it could be as simple as setting up a proper mailing list, setting 1-2 books permafree, and maybe running a few ads. But yeah--if the results don't show up by themselves, you absolutely ought to try something. There's a wealth of options right here in this thread.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Okay, well I'd agree with just about all of that.
> 
> And he's got a big enough backlist it might make sense to go super-heavy on active promotion to try and uplift everything. But I don't think that level of hustle is absolutely necessary. I think it could be as simple as setting up a proper mailing list, setting 1-2 books permafree, and maybe running a few ads. But yeah--if the results don't show up by themselves, you absolutely ought to try something. There's a wealth of options right here in this thread.


Now Edward,
You have an advantage. Some people misread your name.


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## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

Quiss said:


> Question about a post above: Is there a way to find out where your books appear as also-boughts?
> I've seen some of my fellow indies on the list on my book pages (and, on one memorable occasion, Buzz Aldrin), but how do you know where you show up?


Try: http://www.yasiv.com/


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

cinisajoy said:


> Now Edward,
> You have an advantage. Some people misread your name.


It's true, when I'm not writing sci-fi, I enjoy fronting a popular Canadian rock band.

Or did you mean something else?


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> It's true, when I'm not writing sci-fi, I enjoy fronting a popular Canadian rock band.
> 
> Or did you mean something else?


I was thinking this guy.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_G._Robinson


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Greg Strandberg said:


> Authors that are only putting books out 1 or 2 times a year because of slow editing are going to lose out long-term. Editors can do stuff in a week or 2, and faster if they devote all their time to your work. It doesn't take a year to edit a book, at least not anymore, and never should have.


Soooo, really...
The thrust of what you and some others here are saying is that, unless we can do this full time and churn thing out like mad, we might as well pack it in if we hope to sell a decent number of books (whatever that may be?)


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2013)

Monique said:


> I'm glad that's working for you, JA. Clearly, it's working well. However, none of the successful authors I know spend 6 hours a day marketing. Not even close. There are other paths. That said, no marketing *at all* makes for a tough road.


I don't do it anymore, but I did for a while. It nearly drove me insane...but it worked. Hang on....the voices want to tell me something...okay, sorry. I'm back. Anyway. Now that I have momentum and a decent fan-base, I can focus my energy on specific marketing tools that I learned were effective and ignore those that were not. It's still hard work, but it allows me to concentrate on my stories and more importantly, my family.

I think we can all agree that more is not better unless its good material. I think what really is the divide is if you have a lot of good work, how best to release it to a writers advantage. Should should spray like a machine gun or aim like a sniper. Yeah, I'm from the south, hence to gun analogy. Each has advantages and disadvantages. The machine gun approach gets you out there and, if the work is good, well produced material, you have a chance of hitting your target through sheer force of numbers. The disadvantages is you are all over the map with your marketing. You can never focus your attention on a single book long enough to get a foothold and cultivate a fan-base. 
Or you can sniper. The advantage is you are focused and targeted. You approach marketing with deliberate relentlessness that should you see results, they are long term and gains you a dedicated following. The disadvantages are that you put out less work and possibly miss out on another one of your books hitting big. You are dependent on the one book until you can put out another.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

MeiLinMiranda said:


> I need to stop reading this thread; I'm getting deeply depressed again, right when the other thread had sorta dug me out a little. I can't sit here feeling like a failure. It's just not helping.


I quit writing ever so many times, once for 5+ years (and I was way more miserable during those 5 years of not writing than I was of writing but not selling). But I quit quitting as many times as I quit and think I've kicked my quitting habit altogether now. So take heart, take a break when you need it, then come back.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Hmm. That's not really what I do.


Neither do I. My facebook & twitter feeds show it. This last month is the most active I've been in marketing because of the box set I was in (and we went to #4 in the kindle store (WOOT)). I am going to pick up the marketing pace BUT only once I pick up the writing pace.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

I think if Mike does the perma-free and pushes on the marketing for that first book, while focusing on writing book 4, he'll come back in six months with a whole new perspective. 

Quiss, sorry, but anyone who thinks you can compete with full time businesses working part time is misleading you. Very, very few part time businesses make full time money. That's just the way it is. Which is why having realistic expectations is key. If your expectation is to get the same results as someone working 10 hour days, six days a week, working a few hours a day, your expectations are out of line with reality, and you're going to be kind of miserable. While there's no guarantee that either will result in book sales, it should be obvious that if you spend, say, five times more hours on writing and marketing, you will likely see considerably better results than someone spending two, all other things being equal. As an example, if I thought I could duplicate my results, for which I've had to average 12-15 hour days, seven days a week, working three hours a day, or even four, why would I bother doing the former? Answer: because it won't work the same, and won't yield the same results. I won't be able to generate as much quality product, or market as much, which means less money, which means not being able to hire pros to do my covers, editing, proofing and formatting, which translates to even less money, and now I'm in a downward spiral I don't want to be in.

I've been told countless times on this board, "but your way isn't the only way." I totally get that. There are many ways to do it. But if the question is framed as, "can I expect the same results working a part time job a few hours a day, as working full time?" Guess what? Honest answer is, why on earth would you believe that? Does anything else work that way? No? Then why this?

That's why I stress that having realistic expectations is key to being satisfied. A better way to ask a good question might be, "how can I get the best possible result working with what I have in the time I have to do it?" If you ask a question like, "How can I have full time success working part time," your answer ain't gonna be pretty. Or worse, "Why can't I have full time success working part time?" Uh, well, because the world doesn't work that way...

Not trying to start another in a long string of defenses of DIY and part time application of effort here. Just trying to say, you have to be realistic in what you expect out of a situation, based on what you put in.

In my opinion, of course.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> Quiss, sorry, but anyone who thinks you can compete with full time businesses working part time is misleading you. Very, very few part time businesses make full time money.


I understand what you're saying. I think a lot of what's posted here assumes that everyone wants to be a Hugh Howey. That just isn't the case and I'd be pretty arrogant for anyone to assume that folks are looking to get those results without putting in the work. It's all relative.
Also, some of us are not only unable to crank out a dozen formula romances or porn titles per year, but aren't interested. That is also a variable.

However, statements like this are simply discouraging:



> He should be spending SIX hours a day on markietng. Sorry to those of you who hate that part of business. But that's how it's done. He should have thousands of friends and fans on Goodreads. He should have thousands of followers on Twitter. He should have thousands of people Liking his FB page and he should post to all of these places daily. He should have a small army of dedicated fans shouting out about his books. He should have another small army of authors in the same genre, also shouting out about his books.
> This is what we do to get sales - this is what we have that 'you' don't.


"Get sales?" Get 1000 sales or get 100,000? 
I think we all need to keep scales in mind. The OP was looking for ways to improve sales for what he has, not another lecture on how to crank out a bazillion words as some but by no means the majority of authors are able to.

Some posts are starting to sound like "do this or you might as well look into Get Rich Quick with Basketweaving". It's discouraging and a bit belittling for those holding out hope for a shot at publishing now that the Trad hurdles have been removed.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> That's why I stress that having realistic expectations is key to being satisfied. A better way to ask a good question might be, "how can I get the best possible result working with what I have in the time I have to do it?" If you ask a question like, "How can I have full time success working part time," your answer ain't gonna be pretty. Or worse, "Why can't I have full time success working part time?" Uh, well, because the world doesn't work that way...


Totally. If you expect something impossible, it's only going to make you bitter and frustrated if it doesn't happen.

I might argue that's a bit different than dreaming something impossible. I think the most important way to keep going when you're bitter and frustrated is to dream the impossible dream and hope with every fiber of your being that it's going to happen. Anyone read Amanda Hocking's (years old) blog post about her dream bulletin board?

And, in keeping with my "hope is thing with feathers" theme, lol:

I (and many other authors on this board) started making more money from writing than I was making from my day job BEFORE I quit my day job.

Yes, after I quit my day job, my income increased.

But it IS possible to make full time money working part time. Lots of people have done it. Now, for me, full time money is $3K a month. For Russell Blake, I imagine, he would need lots of tequila if he were only making that.  However, whatever the amount it is you need, there are people here who have done it. It can happen.

So, will you be able to work harder, better, faster, and stronger once you are full time? Yes. Will you make more money? Maybe. Can you graduate from writing part time to full time? Heck yes, and never stop believing it either. Be impossible, people. And write with joy.


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

valeriec80 said:


> I (and many other authors on this board) started making more money from writing than I was making from my day job BEFORE I quit my day job.
> 
> Yes, after I quit my day job, my income increased.
> 
> But it IS possible to make full time money working part time. Lots of people have done it... So, will you be able to work harder, better, faster, and stronger once you are full time? Yes. Will you make more money? Maybe. Can you graduate from writing part time to full time? Heck yes, and never stop believing it either. Be impossible, people. And write with joy.


This is a nice post. "Write with joy." Me gusta.

I started earning more than my day job while I was still there, too. But I wasn't really working part-time hours. I worked all evening and throughout the weekends on it. I found full time hours in my schedule, neglected my family, and made it happen. 

I don't work more now that I'm a full-time writer, though; I just spend a lot more time with my husband and son. It's awesome.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Quiss: I agree that's a depressing statement. For one reason, because I'd never say that. I don't spend six hours a day on marketing. I might spend two if I'm writing 10 to 12. One of the reasons I frame it more as write 75%, market 25%, is because it's sane, it reflects what I do and have done, and it doesn't matter whether we're talking two hours a day or eight - the same ratio can apply.

As to number of books per year, I'm slowing down my production next year. The breakneck pace wears at you. And frankly, I'm not sure that about half the books I did put out did much good in overall sales. In other words, I think I could have put out 4 or 5 novels a year working full time and done almost as well. Too late now, but it's good to be able to look back and see what actually worked and what didn't. Series worked. Stand alones, not so much. I think if you have a big trad pub pushing your stand alone for six months because you got a massive advance, it could. But as indies, I look at my sales and its from the series. On the other hand, Konrath's biggest seller couple years ago was from the List, which was stand-alone. So you never know. I'm just saying what worked for me.


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2013)

Mike Dennis said:


> TW--They may not have used the word "surefire", but they certainly implied it quite strongly. Go back on KB and read some of the thoughts on writing more books. You'll see what I mean.


No one who gave that advice ever said anything was "surefire" in this business--at least, no one with any authority or sense. Plenty of people might have taken it as a mantra, wishing that it would make things "surefire" if they repeated it often enough. From what it sounds like, you were probably one of those people. The truth is, no one duped you. If anything, you duped yourself. Are you going to accept that and move on, or try to point fingers and blame someone else for your misfortune?

Nothing is "surefire," none of us has control, and no one knows anything. If this thread seems discouraging, it's because of the people who are still trying to hold onto the illusion of control. A lot of the posts on this thread seem to be grasping for that illusion.

Janneco, your advice may work for you, but six hours a day of "shooting the [crap]" with readers?  Give me a break. And Blake, I personally find the "hours per day" paradigm to be a defeating and self-destructive measure of my work output, though I do agree that you need at least the same dedication to your writing as you'd have to a full-time job (probably much more).

The truth is, no one knows anything. It's as scary as hell, but it's also incredibly liberating. There's opportunity everywhere, more than enough to go around--even with all the millions of books "flooding" the market. Now go like Valieric and do the impossible.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

blakebooks said:


> I think if Mike does the perma-free and pushes on the marketing for that first book, while focusing on writing book 4, he'll come back in six months with a whole new perspective.


Russell--I put the first book in my Key West series on the various outlets for free today. Some, like Apple, will take a while, and Kobo is still tangled up in that erotica mess, but I'm hopeful it won't be too long before it goes free on Amazon. I've also cleared the decks tomorrow afternoon to work on book 4. Thanks again for the good words.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

valeriec80 said:


> Totally. If you expect something impossible, it's only going to make you bitter and frustrated if it doesn't happen.
> 
> I might argue that's a bit different than dreaming something impossible. I think the most important way to keep going when you're bitter and frustrated is to dream the impossible dream and hope with every fiber of your being that it's going to happen. Anyone read Amanda Hocking's (years old) blog post about her dream bulletin board?
> 
> ...


Valerie--Good thoughts there. Worth reading again.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

Joe Vasicek said:


> No one who gave that advice ever said anything was "surefire" in this business--at least, no one with any authority or sense. Plenty of people might have taken it as a mantra, wishing that it would make things "surefire" if they repeated it often enough. From what it sounds like, you were probably one of those people. The truth is, no one duped you. If anything, you duped yourself. Are you going to accept that and move on, or try to point fingers and blame someone else for your misfortune?
> 
> Nothing is "surefire," none of us has control, and no one knows anything. If this thread seems discouraging, it's because of the people who are still trying to hold onto the illusion of control. A lot of the posts on this thread seem to be grasping for that illusion.


Joe--Whoa! First of all, I didn't dupe myself into believing someone else's line of BS. The "write more books" mantra (and it _is_ a mantra) has been repeated here and elsewhere ad nauseam. The word "surefire" may not have been used, although it wouldn't surprise me if it had, but it was certainly implied, and quite often. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone.

And nowhere in here have I blamed anyone for my misfortune. All I have said is that the "write more books" mantra doesn't ALWAYS work. Judging by the response to my original post and the continuing interest in this thread, this is obviously a concept that has seldom been stated. Giving voice to it is healthy, IMHO, and batting it around the way we've been doing is good for everyone.

But don't accuse me of blaming someone else or of being blind to my own situation.


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

JanneCO said:


> I don't market six hours a day, but I do at least three. I like it so I continue to do it. I don't have to do it. And if people are selling they don't either.
> 
> But this guys has written a lot of freaking books and he's selling next to nothing. That's a problem that has an answer. Part of it is marketing. Part of it might be his writing. I'm not sure, I've never read his books. But clearly, what he's doing is not working. So you know, if writers are in this position, then instead of sticking their heads in the sand and saying well, so and so doesn't market... (and they probably do, just not the same way I do) so I don't have to either, they should learn how to do some of this stuff.
> 
> ...


Okay, Janne. Time to bring you back down to earth. I'm the OP on this thread. My head is NOT in the sand. Contrary to your assumptions about me, I spent two years marketing 3-4 hours a day, every day, without fail. That's two years. I'm on Facebook. I have a Facebook author page. I'm not on Twitter because it's become a noise factory. I've done Select giveaways (many, many times), BookBub, ENT, and all the rest. I've done interviews, written reviews, and have a nice website. I only have about three hundred Facebook friends and fewer than 50 followers on my author page.

See, when someone's not selling books the way you are, they DO NOT accumulate a big fan base. Readers have to buy your books and actually read them _before_ they become fans.

Therefore, "marketing" takes on a whole different meaning. It really doesn't mean dropping a notice on thousands of my readers and selling a few thousand more books as a result. It means trying for one more person to follow my fan page. It means posting frequently to my regular Facebook account and hoping my occasional posts about my books aren't regarded as spam. It means sweating out each individual sale of any of my 11 titles, sometimes going for days at a time without a single sale of any kind. Are you getting the picture?

You sold hundreds of copies of your book overnight with "no help from you"? Well, let me tell you, there was no "wish list". You had plenty of help from Amazon, and don't forget it. Your previous book did very well, so they promoted your new one right away, and you woke up the next morning to see all these sales and blissfully wondered, "Well, where did those come from?"

As you correctly stated, when you sell a lot of books, you get the perks, such as heavy promotion, shoving your book up the charts and delivering tons of sales to your doorstep. Nothing to it, right? I would be willing to bet you didn't have thousands of Facebook fans until you started selling many more thousands of books in a very short time, thanks to Amazon's help.

Yes, all bestselling authors have tons of fans. But the only way to get them is to sell tons of books. And for an indie writer, the only way to do that is with plenty of internal promotion from Amazon. There is no other way.

I truly appreciate all the thoughtful suggestions I received from well-meaning posters on this thread. There were some very constructive ideas thrown my way. I've already implemented some of them, and I intend to implement more in the hopes it will land me a few more sales. I'll keep on keepin' on, but as far as this thread is concerned &#8230; I am done.


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## Jason Blacker (May 20, 2011)

Hey Mike,

I feel your pain.

Back in July 2012 I sold around 160 copies. I had about 18 titles then.

This month I'll be lucky to sell 40, and I have 70 titles available.

I've written in a whole bunch of genres and I have series out, short stories, compilations
and novels. I've tried different price points and for the last several months I've had the
first of each series out for free. I've done ads, blog tours and reviews too.

Sometimes you just don't get lucky. Simple as that IMHO, despite what others well meaning
advice might suggest.

I wish you the best. It sucks and writing more isn't necessarily the ticket for all of us. Being
in the arts is difficult and I have no idea why some people get the success they do and others
don't.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Good luck, Mike. I hope the new approach goes well. I think you deserve it.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

General response, not to the OP in particular:

I think writing more books is important up to a point. If you have only one part of a series out, your focus should be on finishing that series. But if you have a decent stable of books out, and you're not selling steadily, then your focus should shift to attracting more readers to your existing books.

That is, if you've done everything you can to make those books the best you can. If your books attract poor reviews, then there may be something else going on. Have you tested your writing against the market? Have you ever submitted to magazines and agents? Have you gotten some "This is well-written, but too odd for us" type of rejections?

I know a lot of people sneer at the thought of tradepub professionals, because "they don't know anything", but they have lots of experience in recognising well-plotted and well-written stories, even if they don't want those stories.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

valeriec80 said:


> Be impossible, people. And write with joy.


I love that, Valerie -- especially the *be impossible*. I always assume I'm going to be at the far right of the bell curve in anything I put my mind and effort towards. It's only bit me in the bum once and that was only for a year.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

Mike Dennis said:


> I've also cleared the decks tomorrow afternoon to work on book 4.


You wrote, "to work on book 4." Wouldn't this be "writing more books?" 

(I'm just an observer. Just reading the thread with interest. You -- and everybody else on the board -- are way ahead of me on the publishing curve. Great book covers, BTW.)


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

I never felt the recommendation to "write more books" was meant as a solution for bad sales, so much as a solution for bad writing. The presumption being that if you wrote more, you'd get better, and more people would, per force, purchase your words. Still, it's good advice, even if it is a bit cheeky coming from a best-seller.


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## Guest (Oct 22, 2013)

Jason Blacker said:


> Hey Mike,
> 
> I feel your pain.
> 
> ...


You've invested a lot. Keep going!


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

H. S. St. Ours said:


> I never felt the recommendation to "write more books" was meant as a solution for bad sales, so much as a solution for bad writing. The presumption being that if you wrote more, you'd get better, and more people would, per force, purchase your words. Still, it's good advice, even if it is a bit cheeky coming from a best-seller.


"The presumption being that if you wrote more, you'd get better..." - H. S. St. Ours

There is really some truth to that if you are improving your craft as you write more. In fact some authors on this board have alluded to the fact that they go back and edit their first novels to make them up to standard with their latest novels. That just says that they have now improved in their writing. Some authors have said that the first book they published is not necessarily the first book they wrote. An author whose blog I follow said that she had written at least half a dozen complete novels before an agent noticed her, and none of her practice manuscripts were publishable by her standards today.

The catch with selfpub is that authors are publishing more frequently and in higher volumes than tradpub. The question is whether some of the indie novels published are truly "practice manuscripts" rather than polished products. However, as a reader, it's hard to tell because we know there are super talents who only need one draft before they publish. It's true. I've seen people write in pen on paper without changing a single word at the end of the essay. OTOH I've also seen people edit ad inifinitum and never publish anything they've written (I look in the mirror and I see me).


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

JanThompson said:


> OTOH I've also seen people edit ad inifinitum and never publish anything they've written (I look in the mirror and I see me).


Well darlin' you'll publish when you decide you're ready then, no?

Just for the record, the time I spend on Kboards has as much to do w/ the people I've met here as anything for my career. Sure, sayin' 'yo' to HH or EC and the cool kids is dynamite. But&#8230; heck&#8230; for me at my level of success&#8230; I can relate more to you, Jan, or maybe Mike, or anyone else on this list who a member of the 'Ain't There Yet' club, y'know?

Now, that could be a whole other thread defining 'Ain't There Yet', but I think you know what I mean. And it's a big club. And we're pretty da** cool too. I mean, we're cheering each other on, and learning a lot from one another, and sharing the pearls of wisdom we've garnered along the way.

I guess what I'm saying Jan is that pub'd or not, you're an author in my book.


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## BrianKittrell (Jan 8, 2011)

The saying should read: write more books and promote. One could write 100 books and sell nothing if no one knows they exist.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

Desmond X. Torres said:


> Well darlin' you'll publish when you decide you're ready then, no?
> 
> Just for the record, the time I spend on Kboards has as much to do w/ the people I've met here as anything for my career. Sure, sayin' 'yo' to HH or EC and the cool kids is dynamite. But&#8230; heck&#8230; for me at my level of success&#8230; I can relate more to you, Jan, or maybe Mike, or anyone else on this list who a member of the 'Ain't There Yet' club, y'know?
> 
> ...


Thank you for the kind words, sir.

That sounds like a good thread to bookmark: Ain't There Yet... but Getting There...

I'm working on it as fast as I can (which is slow by most selfpubbers standards, but to me, it's faster than my last decade LOL).

I'm thinking if I sell off all the writing how-to books I have purchased over the years, I might be able to afford editors after all LOL!









http://www.pinterest.com/pin/353884483190711149/


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

Mike Dennis said:


> Okay, Janne. Time to bring you back down to earth. I'm the OP on this thread. My head is NOT in the sand. Contrary to your assumptions about me, I spent two years marketing 3-4 hours a day, every day, without fail. That's two years. I'm on Facebook. I have a Facebook author page. I'm not on Twitter because it's become a noise factory. I've done Select giveaways (many, many times), BookBub, ENT, and all the rest. I've done interviews, written reviews, and have a nice website. I only have about three hundred Facebook friends and fewer than 50 followers on my author page.


Only You know what the problem is, Mike. Perhaps you didn't do it right? I'm not even saying that's true, I'm just throwing out possibilities. I've been saying the same thing for a very long time. But people don't like to hear the M word, or they give up.

And for what's it's worth, marketing is something you have to do continuously until it propagates itself. And even then, if you don't interact with the fans, they lose interest in you and go read some other awesome book that's out there.

Some people on here don't seem to get this. They're still looking for the Book Fairy.



> See, when someone's not selling books the way you are, they DO NOT accumulate a big fan base. Readers have to buy your books and actually read them _before_ they become fans.


Mike - I've been publishing books for almost exactly one year. Oct 1 was my anniversary. How the hell do you think I got the stinking fan base? Honestly - HOW? The Book Fairy? Last August I had ZERO Twitter followers. Last October I didn't even HAVE the Facebook page I have now. It did not exist.



> Therefore, "marketing" takes on a whole different meaning. It really doesn't mean dropping a notice on thousands of my readers and selling a few thousand more books as a result. It means trying for one more person to follow my fan page. It means posting frequently to my regular Facebook account and hoping my occasional posts about my books aren't regarded as spam. It means sweating out each individual sale of any of my 11 titles, sometimes going for days at a time without a single sale of any kind. Are you getting the picture?


Mike, I absolutely GET the picture, because like I said, last year I had nothing, this year I have quite a lot. But you guys insist it's The Book Fairy who did it for me. It wasn't - it was marketing.



> You sold hundreds of copies of your book overnight with "no help from you"? Well, let me tell you, there was no "wish list". You had plenty of help from Amazon, and don't forget it. Your previous book did very well, so they promoted your new one right away, and you woke up the next morning to see all these sales and blissfully wondered, "Well, where did those come from?"


That post was in response to someone who was postulating that Amazon picks favorites. I'm not saying I'm a favorite, but they did me a favor last week. I posted that to confirm her suspicion. I did know I had a large number of people with that particular book on a Wish List because another author pointed it out to me a while back when we were all in the top 20 on some weird list for Wish Lists together. Plus that book had never been on sale.

****People who are paying attention would've picked that little nugget out of that post and said... hmmmmmm... I wonder if that has something to do with it. I absolutely think it does. But you know, take what you want from that post.



> As you correctly stated, when you sell a lot of books, you get the perks, such as heavy promotion, shoving your book up the charts and delivering tons of sales to your doorstep. Nothing to it, right? I would be willing to bet you didn't have thousands of Facebook fans until you started selling many more thousands of books in a very short time, thanks to Amazon's help.


You have no idea how I sold so many books. But it wasn't Amazon, it was actually a string of events back in May that had to do with a combination of another author, a Facebook book club, my author group, a great book, a 99 cent price, a blog tour, a cover reveal, and tons of giveaways. In other words, I worked my a** off.



> Yes, all bestselling authors have tons of fans. But the only way to get them is to sell tons of books. And for an indie writer, the only way to do that is with plenty of internal promotion from Amazon. There is no other way.


You get them one fan at a time. And you get those fans by interacting with them. I have a few superfans, and all you need is a few. They help with so many things and they make all the difference.

And today I spent the whole day marketing!  I'm not ready to write the next scene so I remade a cover for an upcoming book, I made a promo graphic for the upcoming cover reveal (which was announced today), I pushed the sign-ups for that reveal, I chatted with a bunch of fans and book bloggers who are asking for promos, I checked reviews at Goodreads, answered some emails, sent prizes for winners of my giveaways, contacted other winners of other giveaways, fooled with my current Rafflecopter to change the share entry, I tweeted and retweeted a bit, and I manned both Facebook pages. Oh, and I blogged and I'm getting ready to blog again, because I promo OTHER authors every single day on my book blog.

I'm not saying everyone should do that - there are many ways to get sales. And just because I'm selling today doesn't mean I'll be selling tomorrow. It's a cycle, people. Your bestseller will not always be a bestseller. You push it when it's selling and write the next one. Then you push that and write the next one.

Some people get lucky and it drops in their lap. Not many of us will be that lucky, so we gotta hustle it up the old fashioned way.

Lest you think I'm behind in my writing, rest assured. I have a new release on November 4th and another on December 2nd.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Mike Dennis said:


> Russell--I put the first book in my Key West series on the various outlets for free today. Some, like Apple, will take a while, and Kobo is still tangled up in that erotica mess, but I'm hopeful it won't be too long before it goes free on Amazon. I've also cleared the decks tomorrow afternoon to work on book 4. Thanks again for the good words.


Hey Mike,

Good move listening to Russell. I have followed his advice, and the results have been awesome. But I'm still slow as (you know what) when it comes to getting more books out there. 

I read "Setup On Front Street" in May and enjoyed it. I'm sure you'll be busting out soon with the changes you're making. Good luck and please keep us posted.


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## Jason Blacker (May 20, 2011)

Greg Strandberg said:


> You've invested a lot. Keep going!


Thanks for your kind words Greg 

I'm gonna keep on truckin', though to be honest, I no longer have
unrealistic expectations of grandeur 

And in a way, that's liberating.

Success to you as well good sir!


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## Guest (Oct 22, 2013)

BrianKittrell said:


> The saying should read: write more books and promote. One could write 100 books and sell nothing if no one knows they exist.


I disagree. People buy my books all the time in roundabout ways that completely baffle me. Just this week I got a string of Nook sales that makes no sense to me, because I never do any promotion over there and sales on Nook have been dry all summer.

As much as some on this thread like to rant against relying too heavily on "the book fairy," you're liable to lose your sanity a lot faster by trying to hold onto the illusion that sales are under your control. They aren't--not any aspect of it. Sorry, Janneco, but I think your advice is absolutely horrible and leads ultimately to madness. Marketing matters, but the smartest and most effective marketing is the stuff you only have to set in motion once or twice, so that it keeps working for you while you do other things (like perma-free). It's not a linear conversion of time into sales, and even if it were, there are so many multipliers that regularly spending all your time on promotion would be a fool's game. I've only been doing this for two years, and already I'm proving you wrong.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> ... Marketing matters, but the smartest and most effective marketing is the stuff you only have to set in motion once or twice, so that it keeps working for you while you do other things (like perma-free). ...


It's rare in life when the more passive components of an activity (selling books) can often times give you the most juice, but I think that's true when you're dealing with ebooks (so I totally agree with you, Joe). Metadata and perma-free are high value passive components. To a certain extent, because the book, description and cover become set and done, they become passive components to. Release frequency (if frequent) isn't passive, but, if the quality is there, it's another high value component to selling books. Mail lists are a mix -- you can set it in place in a quality book and the list will feed itself to a certain extent, but sometimes you have to feed it, such as with bonus content or even (frownie face) contests. Most of my twitter/FB time is interacting with readers who've chosen to seek me out. Seeking out strangers to engage doesn't appeal to me and has been very low return. So even my social media is pretty passive.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

AdrianC said:


> I have a hard time believing people are just taking the "write more books" advice in a vacuum. That seems a bit disingenuous. With all things being equal, after all of the planning and the marketing and the reading and the dreaming, the only thing you can truly control is your word count and the amount of books that have your name. You control your exposure. Everything else is uncertain. But, once again, everything being equal, I'm willing to wager that the writer with the most (positive) reader exposure gets more sales.


You're correct that you can only control your production volume and your exposure, and that everything else is luck. However, I think it's worth repeating those facts often, because I've seen quite a few people who seem to be taking "just write more!" in a vacuum. As surprising as that may be.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I disagree. *People buy my books all the time in roundabout ways that completely baffle me*. Just this week I got a string of Nook sales that makes no sense to me, because I never do any promotion over there and sales on Nook have been dry all summer.
> 
> As much as some on this thread like to rant against relying too heavily on "the book fairy," *you're liable to lose your sanity a lot faster by trying to hold onto the illusion that sales are under your control. They aren't--not any aspect of it. Sorry, Janneco, but I think your advice is absolutely horrible and leads ultimately to madness. Marketing matters, but the smartest and most effective marketing is the stuff you only have to set in motion once or twice, so that it keeps working for you while you do other things (like perma-free). It's not a linear conversion of time into sales,* and even if it were, there are so many multipliers that regularly spending all your time on promotion would be a fool's game. I've only been doing this for two years, and already *I'm proving you wrong.*


I've highlighted the parts that are wrong.

ETA: Okay, wrong sounds overly aggressive and rude, but I reacted pretty strong to your "absolutely horrible" comment. The fact is that the people selling lots of books are also, in general, doing some marketing as well. The people who believe that marketing sullies them and keeps them from producing high quality fiction are, in general, not selling as many copies. Russell Blake has sold a couple of hundred thousand books this year alone. How many has Joe Vasicek sold? A few hundred, if I'm remembering correctly.

If I want to sell more books, I should follow Blake's advice, and not Vasicek's.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

Be careful, Michael. What you're saying is akin to blasphemy here on the Kboards.


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## sundaze (Sep 20, 2013)

Wow, this has been the most useful thread I've read in a long time. Thanks everyone for all the excellent input and sharing your experience. It benefits more than the original OP.  

Marketing, Ugh! Tough for us shy folks, the ones that dream of being reclusive, hermit writers with zero interaction with the outside world. 

And obviously I need to write faster. Now back to my hidey-hole.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

EC Sheedy said:


> I'm doomed...


No you're not.  Start building this kind of platform. It doesn't explode out of nowhere. It takes time to construct. It's something you can work on now, and in the future it will pay off for you.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

ElHawk said:


> No you're not.  Start building this kind of platform. It doesn't explode out of nowhere. It takes time to construct. It's something you can work on now, and in the future it will pay off for you.


Exactly right. Give it a year or two of making a plan and sticking to it. The time will pass before you know it.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> As much as some on this thread like to rant against relying too heavily on "the book fairy," you're liable to lose your sanity a lot faster by trying to hold onto the illusion that sales are under your control. They aren't--not any aspect of it. I've only been doing this for two years, and already I'm proving you wrong.


Joe, all your strategy is proving is that for your goals and expectations, marketing doesn't work for you. That doesn't hold true across the board.

We have no permafree books. I suck (SUCK!) at social media and do pretty much nothing in the way of social marketing save for putting out a monthly newsletter at the Steel Magnolia level. And to Christa's point, I pretty much engage in marketing to strangers as the basis for my selling strategy. I study the market, which means studying the ways the stores sell our product (read "algorithms"), and use that knowledge to push our inventory.

For MY goals and expectations, what I do is the right strategy for us. YMMV, but it doesn't discredit what I do or what Holly does or Michael does or Russell does. You're not proving us _wrong_, you're just proving that with a different set of expectations, other avenues are _possible_.

I just updated the spreadsheets yesterday. For the titles I manage, we've sold 298,000 copies so far this year and have made $223,000. Over the past almost 2 years (our 2-year anniversary is next month), we've sold 398,400 copies, given away 1.22 million books, and made $280,000.

_Of course_ a few of those copies would have sold organically on their own. But the majority did not. Yes, some books never rise to the top - or else they pulse up and down, doing spectacularly when advertised, then falling to the ooze when not, but still earning more money overall despite the rollercoaster sales. One of my own books falls into this category. Left to its own devices, this standalone hangs in the #50K-150K rank and, organically, earns about $200 per month. With strategic pushes, it's sold 10,000 copies and made $20,000.

I actually *can * influence sales depending on marketing strategy. And, yes, I do have the sales data to back that claim up .


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## Heather Hamilton-Senter (May 25, 2013)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> I actually *can * influence sales depending on marketing strategy. And, yes, I do have the sales data to back that claim up .


I would love for you to do a post detailing your strategy and experience! The truth is that in any creative endeavor there are elements that you cannot control and you would drive yourself crazy trying. No one can explain why two equally gifted singers putting the same effort into their career might experience different results - one become a star and the other not. But I'm very interested in learning everything I can from those who have been successful to increase my chances of success - it's still only a chance, but it's likely a better one than if I didn't try hard at all!


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## Darren Wearmouth (Jan 28, 2013)

Heather Lori Harding said:


> I would love for you to do a post detailing your strategy and experience! The truth is that in any creative endeavor there are elements that you cannot control and you would drive yourself crazy trying. No one can explain why two equally gifted singers putting the same effort into their career might experience different results - one become a star and the other not. But I'm very interested in learning everything I can from those who have been successful to increase my chances of success -* it's still only a chance*, but it's likely a better one than if I didn't try hard at all!


I think that's the thing, you're increasing your chances of success if you do it.

More exposure via advertising, marketing and social media interaction increases your likelihood, ignoring it because you're not in 100% control doesn't.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

All right, I'm going to get overly psychological here, but when do I not?

Okay, first of all, if you are reacting to the message that you need to market with a knee-jerk reaction of guilt and feeling essentially as if someone is telling you that it is your fault that you aren't as successful as they are... stop.

It is not your fault. It is subject to the whims of the universe.

Now, having accepted that, you need to believe the opposite thing as well (it's illogical, but it works): And that is that when you do become successful, it will be all because of your own efforts.

That's right. Optimistic people, successful people, hold these two conflicting thought patterns. When they fail, it is not their fault. When they succeed, it is because of their own efforts.

Successful people, therefore, are probably going to tell you that the reason they're successful is because of something they did.

Check out this book to see ad nauseum studies of people in all walks of life that PROVE this is true: http://www.amazon.com/Learned-Optimism-Change-Vintage-ebook/dp/B005DB6S7K/

This is why Joe vehemently believes that HIS way is good, and JanneCO vehemently believes that HER way is good.

(Of course, I can't practice learned optimism without turning into an OCD compulsion)

What we should be taking away from this discussion is that there are multiple paths to success and that success has multiple faces and that there is room for whatever way you want to do it. (Just do something.)

Also that guilt leads to the dark side.

(This thread, yo... It's like the Energizer battery. And it's still _riveting_.)


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

There's also the truth that no one thing is ALWAYS the answer.

Except chocolate.

Betsy


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## Nathalie Hamidi (Jul 9, 2011)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Except chocolate.


NOT TRUE.


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

Yeah, I don't care for chocolate. Give me a bag of chips or a cheese plate.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Zoe York said:


> Yeah, I don't care for chocolate. Give me a bag of chips or a cheese plate.


+1


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## Cege Smith (Dec 11, 2011)

valeriec80 said:


> What we should be taking away from this discussion is that there are multiple paths to success and that success has multiple faces and that there is room for whatever way you want to do it. (*Just do something.*)


+1

Been watching this thread like a hawk, and I agree- there is a TON of good stuff going on in here.


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## Desmond X. Torres (Mar 16, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> All right, I'm going to get overly psychological here, but when do I not?
> 
> This is why Joe vehemently believes that HIS way is good, and JanneCO vehemently believes that HER way is good.
> 
> ...


And now...


Betsy the Quilter said:


> There's also the truth that no one thing is ALWAYS the answer.
> 
> Except chocolate.
> 
> Betsy


and...


Nathalie Hamidi said:


> NOT TRUE.





Nathalie Hamidi said:


> NOT TRUE.


And now...


Zoe York said:


> Yeah, I don't care for chocolate. Give me a bag of chips or a cheese plate.


We have just seen a real life, real time example of Valerie's Hypothesis!
Snack time gang!


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Mmm...cheese...


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## Guest (Oct 22, 2013)

MichaelWallace said:


> I've highlighted the parts that are wrong.
> 
> ETA: Okay, wrong sounds overly aggressive and rude, but I reacted pretty strong to your "absolutely horrible" comment. The fact is that the people selling lots of books are also, in general, doing some marketing as well. The people who believe that marketing sullies them and keeps them from producing high quality fiction are, in general, not selling as many copies. Russell Blake has sold a couple of hundred thousand books this year alone. How many has Joe Vasicek sold? A few hundred, if I'm remembering correctly.
> 
> If I want to sell more books, I should follow Blake's advice, and not Vasicek's.


My sales are nowhere near the level of some writers on these boards, but they are growing, and with very little marketing. This year, I've sold well over a thousand books--in the last four months alone, I've sold over a thousand books. I do almost no promotion, either; I keep putting it off as something I'll do when I'm "more established," or when I have more books out. So yes, I am proving that you can sell books and build a career without spending a minimum of six hours marketing per day (or whatever ridiculous number people are touting this week).



Phoenix Sullivan said:


> For MY goals and expectations, what I do is the right strategy for us. YMMV, but it doesn't discredit what I do or what Holly does or Michael does or Russell does. You're not proving us _wrong_, you're just proving that with a different set of expectations, other avenues are _possible_.


I agree completely. Everyone has different goals, and different strategies are more or less valuable depending on your goals. My goal is fairly modest: it's to make a living telling stories that I love. For what you're doing, I don't doubt that your strategy is more effective than mine.

The thing I really object to is when someone (like Janneco) comes out and says "you MUST market/promote your books in such-and-such a way, otherwise you will _faaaaaaail_." That's what everyone seems to be getting depressed at, and that's what I'm proving wrong.

Perhaps it's a bit strong to say that we have "no control" over sales. Then again, how much of your strategy is focused on controlling the market, and how much is focused on predicting and responding to it instead? Does the market still do things that surprise you? You've always struck me as someone who approaches the market as a phenomenon to be analyzed and understood rather than a beast to be controlled. I don't doubt that you are able to influence sales, but only because you understand and respect market forces, and know your own limitations in responding to them.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

David 'Half-Orc' Dalglish said:


> Be careful, Michael. What you're saying is akin to blasphemy here on the Kboards.


There are a lot of folks around these parts like me, that eat up the marketing advice that the big dogs like Russell and you guys offer up, we're just not as vocal. So no blasphemy, please keep it coming.


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## sundaze (Sep 20, 2013)

But chocolate makes the social media marketing easier. Nope, that's the wine.


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## Guest (Oct 22, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> All right, I'm going to get overly psychological here, but when do I not?
> 
> Okay, first of all, if you are reacting to the message that you need to market with a knee-jerk reaction of guilt and feeling essentially as if someone is telling you that it is your fault that you aren't as successful as they are... stop.
> 
> ...


Interesting point. I would say that the best way to look at it is to not even worry about whether it's "your fault" or not, and just keep trying things until you find what works for you. We writers tend to heap so much guilt on ourselves, sometimes this seems less like a business and more like a religion (and a bad one at that). Sheesh.


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## David Thayer (Sep 7, 2012)

Mike glad to hear that you're working on book four. I'm working on Book four of the DiPino series and I'm having these thoughts based on the feedback I've received from the first three.

The book is too long.
The story is too complicated.
The main character does naughty things if in a good cause.
Some of the dialogue is drowned out by ambient noise. ( the setting is NYC.)
What's with all the moral ambiguity anyway?

Anon.


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## Silly Writer (Jul 15, 2013)

Alan Petersen said:


> There are a lot of folks around these parts like me, that eat up the marketing advice that the big dogs like Russell and you guys offer up, we're just not as vocal. So no blasphemy, please keep it coming.


I'm with you... I love these threads. I wish I was a sponge.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

David Thayer said:


> Mike glad to hear that you're working on book four. I'm working on Book four of the DiPino series and I'm having these thoughts based on the feedback I've received from the first three.
> 
> The book is too long.
> The story is too complicated.
> ...


Odd because the John Locke books could be described that way. I know there were some "irregularities" in his marketing, such as paid for reviews and ?block purchases?, but he still sold a million books and that wasn't entirely to himself.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> ...And to Christa's point, I pretty much engage in marketing to strangers as the basis for my selling strategy. *I study the market, which means studying the ways the stores sell our product (read "algorithms"), and use that knowledge to push our inventory. *


I study my market, too, and each store's ecosystem (although the ecosystem is definitely poor on B&N and Kobo, so not much to study and for my purposes, if it is at odds with Amazon, I'm not spending time on it). I'm not sure what you mean by using that knowledge to push inventory -- for me, I use it to create inventory (i.e., where can I best invest my writing time -- single titles, price and length range, series or serial, genre, etc., what cover style is most popular (all other factors being relatively equal -- e.g. don't do an object cover just because EL James, Sylvia Day and Maya Banks can have best sellers with object covers!!!)).

And for what may seem like a lot of naysaying on my part, I am paying attention and plan different strategies to supplement what I already do. I took a step out from my normal low-engagement strategies in October and had good results (it was a multi-author event - 2 of them, different author groups) and now that I am selling just under 200k (in royalties, not retail) worth of books for a year, with a backlist of 24 titles -- I can expect a far larger return for something like bookbub than when I had 5 or 10 titles out that were all short works. (Although I don't know - is bookbub the one that won't take erotic romances) I told my husband I was going to deliver a 1m year in 2014 and I can't write that many books under that many different names, so a marketing juggernaut or publishing lottery (zero control) or a whole lot of eating crow (easiest to do!) is on my agenda.


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## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

Monique said:


> I'm glad that's working for you, JA. Clearly, it's working well. However, none of the successful authors I know spend 6 hours a day marketing. Not even close. There are other paths. That said, no marketing *at all* makes for a tough road.


Monique pretty much hits the nail on the head for me. I know lots of writers, some doing extremely well with indie publishing, and very few of them come any where close to spending 25% of their time on marketing -- at least not the way it's being defined by most people in this thread. Mine would probably fall under 70/20/10: 70% producing new material, 20% studying the craft/business and trying to get better, and 10% marketing, and I probably have a much broader definition of marketing (cover design is marketing).

My two cents, as someone who's a pretty serious part-time writer:

1. Marketing strategy is much more important than marketing effort
2. Focus on marketing tactics that have high ROI

Permafree loss leaders, Bookbub and other book discovery services, building a mailing list (slow but worth doing), etc, there's lots of great tactics that have high ROI. Social media, book trailers, blog tours all have very low ROI. So I think you can get about 90% of the effect that those spending gobs more hours marketing get if you just prioritize. And I'm always stunned at how little time some writers spend trying to get better. In the long run, it's FAR more important than marketing, especially how things are changing now.

And to Mike: kudos to you for adapting your strategy to include a high-ROI tactic (a permafree loss leader in a series, done the right way). Smart man. If your takeaway from this was that you should spend more time on Twitter, I think I would have lost all hope.


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## David Thayer (Sep 7, 2012)

Christa, let's hope for Lockian results without all scandal! I guess I was trying to say that if I write more books they will likely have the same traits as their predecessors.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

I've studied this thread carefully and what I've taken away is: chocolate, cheese and wine. I really must eat lunch before reading kboards.


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## MGalloway (Jun 21, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Marketing matters, but the smartest and most effective marketing is the stuff you only have to set in motion once or twice, so that it keeps working for you while you do other things (like perma-free). It's not a linear conversion of time into sales, and even if it were, there are so many multipliers that regularly spending all your time on promotion would be a fool's game. I've only been doing this for two years, and already I'm proving you wrong.


Interesting. For the last year (or two, depending on how you count), I've been experimenting with my books. I only ran a couple of ads, and although I did have a website and a blog, I had no social media presence. I utilized KDP Select, but I did little to promote the free days until very recently. I also rotated multiple short stories through Select, most of which were ultimately folded back into two short story collections. Yes, I did some GR and LT giveaways, with varying results. In short, it was a real shoestring budget approach (sometimes I didn't have a choice). A small part of me thought that despite my unusual platform if I just wrote the absolute tightest books I could possibly write, traffic would steadily increase.

I knew, though, given my ad background, that it was a long shot at best. It's like creating a nice product, sticking it on a store shelf somewhere in a giant grocery store, and waiting for results. If nobody knows it exists, will it sell? Will the handful of people that discover it tell anybody else about it? Maybe, but most likely they won't. Hence the typical need to advertise/promote/market.

I think, in general, most books and author situations each have their own unique attributes and challenges, yet some fundamentals remain (those have been discussed at length elsewhere on this board). I'm not quite certain I fully understand how your situation is working, but I can demonstrate what can happen when one of those fundamentals is missing or minimal. The results aren't pretty. So I'm going to alter that fundamental variable in substantial but unorthodox ways going forward.


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## gonedark (May 30, 2013)

Content removed due to TOS Change of 2018. I do not agree to the terms.


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## wildwitchof (Sep 2, 2010)

Great thread. I've been around KB since the same time as the OP (Hi, Mike) and didn't see any real profit until this year. My own little success has been because of a freaky viral "perma"free (zero to 250K downloads in May). Once I had that visibility, I had people come to my FB page, find me on Twitter, leave reviews. Those reviews led to a BB ad. More money, #25 paid on Kindle, folks on my mailing list. Now I can social network with actual people, and I find it more of a pleasure. This is contagious, more people come by, etc. My new release next month is actually eagerly awaited by a list of actual people.

I couldn't have done the marketing if I hadn't had the success. Very chicken and egg.

As for writing more books: I haven't published a title since July 2012. Yet I'm doing better than ever. Much, much better. (The delay is in part b/c I wrote in other pen names, started series that aren't ready yet, etc.......and I'm too d*mn slow.)

I agree with most views on this thread--even the ones that seem to be opposed to one another--because of my own experience. I'm having great results with part-time work. I don't do the marketing I should. But: I want to write more and read the productivity advice with an open mind, and I am learning how to promote, even if I don't (didn't--I'm learning) enjoy it.

If this was tl:dr, summary: Good luck, Mike!


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

valeriec80 said:


> (This thread, yo... It's like the Energizer battery. And it's still _riveting_.)


LOL! Yes, it is.

Add me to the list of authors who eat up every crumb of experience that you successful ones leave for us. Thank you all so much for leaving these breadcrumbs for us to follow. I know you don't have to, and I appreciate your time and attention.


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## ElisaBlaisdell (Jun 3, 2012)

H. S. St. Ours said:


> I never felt the recommendation to "write more books" was meant as a solution for bad sales, so much as a solution for bad writing. The presumption being that if you wrote more, you'd get better, and more people would, per force, purchase your words. Still, it's good advice, even if it is a bit cheeky coming from a best-seller.


Also, that when you actually do promotion, you accomplish a lot more.


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

My ultimate takeaway from this thread: f-it. Not _you_. It.

I write slowly--or I should say, I think slowly. It takes a while for a book in my main series to take shape in my head, but once it's ready to be written I can write a 140k draft in three-four months or so. It's the cogitating that takes time, and I have found no good way to rush it. I can't use the speed tactic.

My main series is neither fish nor fowl; it's sexual but not erotic, it's fantasy but not heroic, it's Victorianesque but not steampunk, it's genre but not formula. It verges on the literary, and I don't mean that in a high-falutin' "I'm above genre" way.

I have tried a dozen different ways to figure out my audience. Jacqueline Carey seems to be the closest judging on alsobots, but durned if I know how to reach those people; what I've tried hasn't worked to date, and I've had more than one or two reviewers say my work is nothing like hers--all there is in common is superficial, a sexual priesthood. The rest of my alsobots are misplaced erotica and some stragglers I have no idea why they're there.

Bookbub won't take me on any of my books, even the almost-G-rated Drifting Isle book. Nothing else really works so I'm told, and experience has borne this out. I don't do free; since I have only one DIC book right now and I'm writing book three of my main series, it seems pointless to do free and when I have it's led to nothing.

I've tried pricing low, sales fall even lower. I've tried pricing a dollar higher, but maybe that's not high enough.

I do blog exchanges, nothing. Guest posts, nothing. Cross promos, nothing. Rafflecopters, nothing.

I have made my living as a writer almost my entire life, 30+ years in nonfiction broadcast and web work. I'm now disabled and writing at my own pace is really all I can do; cubicle work is out, as is web work on deadline for clients as I used to. My family desperately needs more income. Writing is all I can do, so it's what I will do. I'm a good writer. My fans adore me, and they'll help people find me. I have to believe that because it's all I've got.

This thread has made me angry, not because I believe anything you guys have said is aimed at me but because what works for so many of you refuses to work for me--not because I won't put the hours in or I hate marketing or won't put the money in or any of that. It. Just. Doesn't. So f-it.

For me it's going to have to be excellent product, one-on-one relationships and luck. I don't see any other way it's going to happen, if it happens at all, and I have to believe it can if only to defeat despair and summon the will to keep writing. The anger seems to have been cleansing, though, because I'm writing at what is for me a breakneck pace.


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

Zoe York said:


> Yeah, I don't care for chocolate. Give me a bag of chips or a cheese plate.


High-fives!


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

MeiLinMiranda said:


> My ultimate takeaway from this thread: f-it. Not _you_. It.
> 
> I write slowly--or I should say, I think slowly. It takes a while for a book in my main series to take shape in my head, but once it's ready to be written I can write a 140k draft in three-four months or so. It's the cogitating that takes time, and I have found no good way to rush it. I can't use the speed tactic.
> 
> ...


Your kind of hard-to-categorize books sound very much like mine... I share your difficulty (down to the Jacqueline Carey parallels thing), but the difference between my attitude just a few months ago and now is that I suddenly am resigned to the fact that our kinds of books just cannot sell well without a major publisher marketing push behind it. Which suddenly gives me a very clear head, which in turn gets rid of my anger, and a calm plan of action.

So my solution is to finish the last book of the Cobweb Bride trilogy and release in December, and then completely switch gears next year and write a commercial YA dystopia in the vein of Divergent and The Hunger Games. It's a hard business decision. But I need to break out, and writing difficult books is just not going to be the way to make it happen except by a lucky miracle.

I'm too old to wait for a miracle, so will do my best to make it as easy as possible for Lady Luck to do her thing.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Scott William Carter said:


> And I'm always stunned at how little time some writers spend trying to get better. In the long run, it's FAR more important than marketing, especially how things are changing now.


Si, si, si to this!! I suppose I'm a bit of a contradiction. I don't ascribe to there being a "right" way to market or produce, but I'm very convinced that there is a pattern to story structure, that it is discoverable, and that it can be used to make story into that transcendent experience we've all had with a really great book. I haven't quite figured it out--there's always more to learn--but I simply adore trying to discover what makes a story tick, and I like attempting to quantify it too.



MeiLinMiranda said:


> For me it's going to have to be excellent product, one-on-one relationships and luck. I don't see any other way it's going to happen, if it happens at all, and I have to believe it can if only to defeat despair and summon the will to keep writing. The anger seems to have been cleansing, though, because I'm writing at what is for me a breakneck pace.


Go, MeiLin go!!



Vera Nazarian said:


> So my solution is to finish the last book of the Cobweb Bride trilogy and release in December, and then completely switch gears next year and write a commercial YA dystopia in the vein of Divergent and The Hunger Games. It's a hard business decision. But I need to break out, and writing difficult books is just not going to be the way to make it happen except by a lucky miracle.


Oh cool! I'm going to "sell out" next year too. (he he... I'm just calling it that for fun. I already sold out, anyway.)

I've been trying to fit myself into the romance genre for waaay too long. I do not belong there, I've realized. The thing is, I wanted to write urban fantasy real bad. But it seemed like paranormal romance was the biggest game in town, and I didn't think it'd be too big a deal to beef up the romantic subplots in my urban fantasy into major plots.

But it IS.

And I'd go back to urban fantasy, but near as I can tell, it's sort of dead if it's not romance. (And the stuff I have written has never caught on.)

I've decided to split it down the middle and try to write contemporary thrillers with no magic and epic fantasy to get my magic fix. No more HEAs!!!! (Ah, so freeing.) As far as I can see, thrillers are basically the most popular thing ever--except for maybe mysteries--and there's not nearly the kind of churn to those charts that there is in romance. And good ol' Georgie Martin seems to have breathed some life into epic fantasy, so... yeah... Mr. Jones and me? We're gonna be big stars. 

Anyway, maybe we can make a big thread of all of us trying-to-write-popular-stuff-in-order-to-be-more-like-the-kboards-superstars-who-have-shown-us-the-way writers and chart how it's going.


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

Vera, I just bought Cobweb Bride. Looks like my kinda book.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Vera Nazarian said:


> So my solution is to finish the last book of the Cobweb Bride trilogy and release in December, and then completely switch gears next year and write a commercial YA dystopia in the vein of Divergent and The Hunger Games. It's a hard business decision. But I need to break out, and writing difficult books is just not going to be the way to make it happen except by a lucky miracle.


I was beginning to think along the same lines. I just don't know if I could stomach it.


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

MeiLinMiranda said:


> Vera, I just bought Cobweb Bride. Looks like my kinda book.


Wow, thank you!  Hope you enjoy!

Your books also look exactly up my alley, and on my Amazon wishlist they go until my negative bank balance clears next week....


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

Andrew Ashling said:


> I was beginning to think along the same lines. I just don't know if I could stomach it.


Go for it.

Think of it as a temporary detour from the books you will be able to write once you make it!


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

ElHawk said:


> No you're not.  Start building this kind of platform. It doesn't explode out of nowhere. It takes time to construct. It's something you can work on now, and in the future it will pay off for you.


I'm not above taking advice, respecting advice, and admiring advice given by all the high-velocity sellers here on the WC. I know they're right; smart promo sells books. My problem is organizing myself and implementing all this good advice. I mean, really, can I call Russell Blake out and tell him he knows "nuttin?" Not happening. 

The wisdom shared on this board will help me find the way that works for me. I just have to get my act together and find some kind of consistent approach that works for me. Right now everything I do is scattered which is not viable as a long term strategy.

I always remember a guy I used to buy advertising from back in the day. He had a brochure, card-like, that said on the front: "Did you hear about that business that never advertises?" Inside it said: "I thought not."


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

Thank you all for this thread. I think it's interesting that for some authors, intensive marketing helps them sell books, and for some other authors, lightweight marketing helps them sell books too.

I was reading an agent blog the other day, and she said that an author needs to have a 50% to 50% writing to marketing ratio. I was taken aback by it because that is telling me that most small traditional publishers are depending on authors more than ever today to carry the marketing load, to get their names out there to sell more books.

OTOH in the indie world, numerous times I've read that it's a 70:30 (Jonathan Gunson) or 75:25 (Russell Blake) ratio. Every now and then I hear an indie author say something like 90:10 ratio. The good news is that regardless of how much marketing you do, you get to keep your profits.

So my conclusion is that your mileage varies. I've enjoyed hearing all sides of the publishing equation, and I just want to take this time to thank everyone for your input (even though I'm not the OP). I'm not sure whether there are other unpubbed authors lurking and listening and reading quietly. But I think there are more listeners than there are people who post replies. I often noticed that the topic has been read many more times than there are replies. 

Even though the OP probably didn't mean for the thread to be directed at newbie publishers, I have found that I've benefited. Thanks again.


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## Guest (Oct 23, 2013)

EC Sheedy said:


> I always remember a guy I used to buy advertising from back in the day. He had a brochure, card-like, that said on the front: "Did you hear about that business that never advertises?" Inside it said: "I thought not."


Huy Fong Foods doesn't do hardly any advertising or marketing, but their sriracha sauce is in grocery stores across the United States. So that's one business that never advertises that I've heard of (big fan of them, too).

Then there's this:


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## xoxo (Sep 6, 2013)

This talk of hard-to-categorize got me thinking about my very..._different_ predicament. I've never vocalized it before because I thought it might drive away the few readers I have, but I have *got* to know: _Is there any audience at all for books that do not have a romantic subplot?_ 
I write fantasy (victorian, urban and rural), and I know people expect fantasy to have romance in some quantity or other. But my sharp cynicism pops that heart-shaped balloon quick-smart, and it makes me smile. I don't *do* romance and I'm not going to force myself to do it. I can't afford that kind of drinking.

The usual advice is that whatever makes your books different is a selling point, but I'm not so sure about this one.

Any words of wisdom? I'll take words of smartness if you're all out of wisdom. Inanity is ok too.


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## WG McCabe (Oct 13, 2012)

They'd build brand identity by aping 30 year old generic food labels?


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## R.V. Doon (Apr 1, 2013)

I'd like to thank the OP for starting this interesting thread. Marketing isn't something I've had real world experience in. Working in a hospital, well, people come 24/7, so the workers don't need to advertise an open bed. Sure I've heard of marketing, but it's the scope of it that takes time to understand. So thank you all for the great comments.


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## Caddy (Sep 13, 2011)

> I was beginning to think along the same lines. I just don't know if I could stomach it.





> Go for it.Think of it as a temporary detour from the books you will be able to write once you make it!


Exactly. Which is why I'm writing short f-books under a pen name. Books to get off to or read as a couple to get ready. Not going to hide behind saying I'm writing erotica. No slow build in 10,000 words but plenty of graphic sex. Not what I want to write, but it's quick. Will see after several books if it pays off. (I avoided the dreaded ban, too. No PI or tentacles.)

My current series that I care about is not historical fiction like Gastien was/is, but the drama is there so it fits with my brand. After that, I may try another genre, one that I'm not crazy about but if I do there will still be drama and bending of a few rules. That way they will still have the feel of my brand.


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## Weirdling (Jun 25, 2011)

PiiaBre said:


> This talk of hard-to-categorize got me thinking about my very..._different_ predicament. I've never vocalized it before because I thought it might drive away the few readers I have, but I have *got* to know: _Is there any audience at all for books that do not have a romantic subplot?_
> I write fantasy (victorian, urban and rural), and I know people expect fantasy to have romance in some quantity or other. But my sharp cynicism pops that heart-shaped balloon quick-smart, and it makes me smile. I don't *do* romance and I'm not going to force myself to do it. I can't afford that kind of drinking.
> 
> The usual advice is that whatever makes your books different is a selling point, but I'm not so sure about this one.
> ...


God, I hope so. I'm in the same boat--I'm hoping I can learn to write romance parts, even as subplots, but right now I can't.

I'm still going to try writing my way, though, because that is what I write.

Even as a reader, I prefer less (or none) rather than more. (Except, of course, when I want to read romance.)

Maybe we should start a club 

Jodi


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## Vera Nazarian (Jul 1, 2011)

PiiaBre said:


> This talk of hard-to-categorize got me thinking about my very..._different_ predicament. I've never vocalized it before because I thought it might drive away the few readers I have, but I have *got* to know: _Is there any audience at all for books that do not have a romantic subplot?_
> I write fantasy (victorian, urban and rural), and I know people expect fantasy to have romance in some quantity or other. But my sharp cynicism pops that heart-shaped balloon quick-smart, and it makes me smile. I don't *do* romance and I'm not going to force myself to do it. I can't afford that kind of drinking.
> 
> The usual advice is that whatever makes your books different is a selling point, but I'm not so sure about this one.
> ...


You can always write about friendship. Bonds of loyalty. Betrayal and trust. Competition and strife. As long as it is emotionally compelling enough, it really is the same thing as love.

I think that's what many people read for anyway... All the other superficial trappings of genre just help illustrate the vagaries of human relationships through entertaining twists of story and suspense. But at the heart of it is just individuals. Make it compelling and you can get away with anything.

Of course good nookie always helps.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

+1 on what Vera said. (On PilaBre's question)


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## xoxo (Sep 6, 2013)

Jodi said:


> Even as a reader, I prefer less (or none) rather than more. (Except, of course, when I want to read romance.)
> 
> Maybe we should start a club
> 
> Jodi


Jodi, we definately should


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Patrick Szabo said:


> They'd build brand identity by aping 30 year old generic food labels?


I hate advertising and marketing and am almost allergic to aggressive campaigns. Having said that, those guys aren't idiots. They know how to gain visibility and sell products. Why anyone would consciously try the invisibility method of selling books is rather baffling.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

PiiaBre said:


> This talk of hard-to-categorize got me thinking about my very..._different_ predicament. I've never vocalized it before because I thought it might drive away the few readers I have, but I have *got* to know: _Is there any audience at all for books that do not have a romantic subplot?_
> I write fantasy (victorian, urban and rural), and I know people expect fantasy to have romance in some quantity or other. But my sharp cynicism pops that heart-shaped balloon quick-smart, and it makes me smile. I don't *do* romance and I'm not going to force myself to do it. I can't afford that kind of drinking.
> 
> The usual advice is that whatever makes your books different is a selling point, but I'm not so sure about this one.
> ...


There's always an audience. The question is generally the size. Have a gander at the Top 100 of Urban/Paranormal Fantasy for Kindle books: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Paranormal-Fantasy/zgbs/digital-text/6157853011/ref=zg_bs_nav_kstore_4_158576011 That's what's selling the most now. It doesn't mean that different things don't also sell, just that they don't sell as much. (Earlier up thread, was there talk of niches?) Plus there's always the chance of something breaking out.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

valeriec80 said:


> There's always an audience. The question is generally the size. Have a gander at the Top 100 of Urban/Paranormal Fantasy for Kindle books: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Paranormal-Fantasy/zgbs/digital-text/6157853011/ref=zg_bs_nav_kstore_4_158576011 That's what's selling the most now. It doesn't mean that different things don't also sell, just that they don't sell as much. (Earlier up thread, was there talk of niches?) Plus there's always the chance of something breaking out.


I'm not in favor of diving into other genres for the sake of chasing the market. That's difficult, both for your enjoyment of writing and for your chances of success. You'll be competing against people who love working in that genre. Having said that, we all have more ideas than we know what to do with. I think it's perfectly valid to look at the types of stories we enjoy writing and make choices among those stories as to which seem more marketable.


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## xoxo (Sep 6, 2013)

Vera Nazarian said:


> You can always write about friendship. Bonds of loyalty. Betrayal and trust. Competition and strife. As long as it is emotionally compelling enough, it really is the same thing as love.
> 
> I think that's what many people read for anyway... All the other superficial trappings of genre just help illustrate the vagaries of human relationships through entertaining twists of story and suspense. But at the heart of it is just individuals. Make it compelling and you can get away with anything.
> 
> Of course good nookie always helps.


Thank you Vera.

Luckily I'm already doing those things. My characters have emotions, some have lots of them. And frienship and family bonds are big for me so those get highlighted. Which in turn makes things like betrayal even better. (My stories are not lighthearted and feel-good, by the way. There are dark things afoot.)

So far I haven't gotten a single complaint about the lack of romance, which makes me think that people are entertained enough to not notice or care. And even my detractors (oh, how long I've waited to say that) agree that my characters are great, which is basically all I want from life.

Valerie, thanks for chiming in. So you think it's better if I don't advertise this?

Michael, I agree 100%.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

I think when people talk about "promoting" or "marketing" being time consuming and/or soul destroying, they are really talking about platform building - i.e. growing your presence on Twitter or Facebook, blogging, hanging out in reader forums etc.

IMO platform building should be separated from true marketing in writers' minds. Platform building is useful, but it's normally a very slow build, can be quite time consuming, and it's the bit of "marketing" than often makes writers feel queasy.

True marketing, IMO, consists of things like competitions, limited-time 99c sales, taking out an ad on a reader site, or running a group promotion with a bunch of other authors.

None of those things take up a lot of time, and they are *proven* ways of building your audience. If done right (i.e. sticking to sites with a good track record), they can have a very positive ROI. Done repeatedly, they can build your audience up very quickly.

If your aim is to make money out of this, if your aim is to build an audience, these are tools which can really really help you. If you don't want to use them, that's your call. 

But don't shy away from marketing because you think it's about endlessly tweeting about your book. It's not.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

dgaughran said:


> But don't shy away from marketing because you think it's about endlessly tweeting about your book. It's not.


Or worse, endlessly tweet your book, then tell people marketing doesn't work.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

PiiaBre said:


> This talk of hard-to-categorize got me thinking about my very..._different_ predicament. I've never vocalized it before because I thought it might drive away the few readers I have, but I have *got* to know: _Is there any audience at all for books that do not have a romantic subplot?_
> I write fantasy (victorian, urban and rural), and I know people expect fantasy to have romance in some quantity or other. But my sharp cynicism pops that heart-shaped balloon quick-smart, and it makes me smile. I don't *do* romance and I'm not going to force myself to do it. I can't afford that kind of drinking.
> 
> The usual advice is that whatever makes your books different is a selling point, but I'm not so sure about this one.
> ...


I'm surprised by your observation, because back when I was reading fantasy a ton, I don't recall much romantic subplottery involved. It's been a few years since I was really into fantasy other than Game of Thrones, though, which feels much more like historical fiction to me than fantasy.

Historical fiction often doesn't include any romantic subplots, but then it often does, too. That's because so much of history hinges on interpersonal relationships, and often the most passionate and therefore compelling personal relationships are romantic in nature.

So much of all fiction involves passionate relationships of some kind, because most characters are humans and human nature is typically so dependent on relationships. We're social animals; we evolved with the need for relationships built into our DNA. I don't think fiction of any kind (other than romance or erotica) strictly NEEDS to have a romantic subplot, but I think it will probably need a compelling interpersonal relationship of some kind. You are telling stories to humans, after all. Relationships hold our interest better than anything else. That's our biology.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

PiiaBre said:


> Valerie, thanks for chiming in. So you think it's better if I don't advertise this?


Don't advertise what? Don't advertise that there's no romance in your book?

I took a quick gander at your novel, and I'm inclined to think that two-star review is a gold mine for you. The reviewer gives a lot of detailed advice for improvement. It's not one of those drive-bys by someone who has no idea what's up. If you've addressed the issues, maybe a note at the end of the description indicating you've released an improved edition?

Basically, what you've got there is a murder mystery, complete with lots of bodies and an anti-hero lead. You don't want to hunt for romance readers. You want people who like murder mysteries with a bit of the supernatural thrown in. You want the audience for that Sleepy Hollow show that just came out. I think any advertising/presentation attempts should go grittier. Your current cover is pretty and a little ominous. I think you should dial up the ominous, dial down the pretty. And if you weren't asking for that kind of advice, just ignore me. After all, I don't know anything.



ElHawk said:


> I'm surprised by your observation, because back when I was reading fantasy a ton, I don't recall much romantic subplottery involved. It's been a few years since I was really into fantasy other than Game of Thrones, though, which feels much more like historical fiction to me than fantasy.


I was too, but then I thought maybe she means urban fantasy, which is glutted with paranormal romance?

There's also a difference between a story about people in a relationship and Romance!, with its happily-ever-afters, alpha heroes, and misunderstandings-as-obstacles trope. You can definitely write about people falling in love and still not appeal to romance fans.


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## Sandra K. Williams (Jun 15, 2013)

PiiaBre said:


> I have *got* to know: _Is there any audience at all for books that do not have a romantic subplot?_
> I write fantasy (victorian, urban and rural), and I know people expect fantasy to have romance in some quantity or other.


I _don't_ expect a romantic subplot, and it's really irritating to start a book i think is fantasy and have it devolve into HEA romance. Not saying a romantic subplot kills the book for me (get enough characters in the story, the romance comes naturally), but that's not the reason i picked up the book.


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## Sandra K. Williams (Jun 15, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> And I'd go back to urban fantasy, but near as I can tell, it's sort of dead if it's not romance.


I'd blame the PNRs, myself. Too hard - impossible? - to tell them apart from the cover. (I don't mind if someone wants to educate me on the cover differences.) After a reader who doesn't enjoy PNRs gets burnt a couple of times, they take UF off their to-read list. At least this reader did.


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## xoxo (Sep 6, 2013)

Valerie, I meant advertise the fact that I don't have romance in my books.

Those two stars are from the Awesome Indies reviewer I mentioned earlier in another thread. He doesn't like how I used third person deep PoV.

You have no idea how grateful I am for your thoughts. This helped a lot and I'm going to try my best to follow your advice.
Thank you!


Thank you ElHawk for your thoughts. There's no lack of interpersonal stuff and passion in my stories, at least I don't think so.

I learn from you guys every day, and welcome all advice you want to give.


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## Some Writer Cat (Sep 22, 2010)

dgaughran said:


> None of those things take up a lot of time, and they are *proven* ways of building your audience. If done right (i.e. sticking to sites with a good track record), they can have a very positive ROI. Done repeatedly, they can build your audience up very quickly.
> 
> If your aim is to make money out of this, if your aim is to build an audience, these are tools which can really really help you. If you don't want to use them, that's your call.
> 
> But don't shy away from marketing because you think it's about endlessly tweeting about your book. It's not.


Agreed. And ROI goes for everything in this business. A number of people up the thread were pounding on the idea that you can't expect full-time results based on part-time effort, and while I agree that more effort is generally better, there isn't a one-to-one correlation between hours spent and book sales. Wish it were so, but no. We're not working for an hourly wage. Some folks work hard, do everything right, and still have modest sales because their writing just has a niche audience. I happen to really like a bluegrass group called Misty River, but they're never going to sell as well as Justin Beiber even though just about everybody who listens to them would probably agree that they're vastly better musicians. His potential audience is just bigger. Same goes for writing. Then there's lots of folks working very hard but selling poorly because they're making bad decisions: poor covers, passive blurbs, boring writing, and spending too much time on mediocre marketing activities that would have been better served spending that time 1) writing more books, and 2) getting better at the craft of storytelling.

So while I agree that you have to be honest with yourself how hard you're working at this, and working harder is generally better, the most important factor isn't effort. It's the quality of your decisions, all the way down to the words you put on the page one at a time.


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## xoxo (Sep 6, 2013)

Sandra K. Williams said:


> I'd blame the PNRs, myself. Too hard - impossible? - to tell them apart from the cover. (I don't mind if someone wants to educate me on the cover differences.) After a reader who doesn't enjoy PNRs gets burnt a couple of times, they take UF off their to-read list. At least this reader did.


Sandra, I know what you mean. I am like you and _we_ are the readers I write for!


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Huy Fong Foods doesn't do hardly any advertising or marketing, but their sriracha sauce is in grocery stores across the United States. So that's one business that never advertises that I've heard of (big fan of them, too).


Love their sauces. I have a bottle of the Sriracha and Garlic Chili sauce in my cupboards at all times. How did I ever find this product that is never advertised or marketed? Just about every Asian restaurant in the United States has a bottle of both sauces on their tables. That's pretty good advertising.

Huy Fong achieved that by forging relationship with several savvy distributors who marketed and sold it to restaurants, grocery stores, etc. so he didn't have to do it, but somebody did it.

I guess that something author's who don't want/like to market their books can look into, hiring someone to handle it for them.

This is one loco cool thread from writing more books to Sriracha sauce, it's all here. Booyah!


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Alan Petersen said:


> Love their sauces. I have a bottle of the Sriracha and Garlic Chili sauce in my cupboards at all times. How did I ever find this product that is never advertised or marketed? Just about every Asian restaurant in the United States has a bottle of both sauces on their tables. That's pretty good advertising.
> 
> Huy Fong achieved that by forging relationship with several savvy distributors who marketed and sold it to restaurants, grocery stores, etc. so he didn't have to do it, but somebody did it.


Joe didn't personally see the marketing done, so he assumed it had spread by word of mouth. I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but for every true word of mouth success you'll see a hundred where the company (read: the author) worked its tail off to get out the word about some cool new product or service. _Of course_ it is important that the product actually be of high quality, but this not sufficient in and of itself.


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## Guest (Oct 23, 2013)

MichaelWallace said:


> Joe didn't personally see the marketing done, so he assumed it had spread by word of mouth. I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but for every true word of mouth success you'll see a hundred where the company (read: the author) worked its tail off to get out the word about some cool new product or service. _Of course_ it is important that the product actually be of high quality, but this not sufficient in and of itself.


It wasn't just an assumption. The company is well-known for making the product itself their focus, and is doing very well in spite of the fact that they do no advertising:



> Revenue grows about 20% a year even with all the competition. Huy Fong Foods has never spent a dollar on advertising.


source

I'm not sure what other marketing they've done, but I'm willing to bet it's mostly word of mouth, whether that's between everyday folks in the grocery store or restaurant owners. Either way, it challenges the notion that no one will ever hear about or buy your product if you don't advertise it.


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## Guest (Oct 23, 2013)

Alan Petersen said:


> Love their sauces. I have a bottle of the Sriracha and Garlic Chili sauce in my cupboards at all times. How did I ever find this product that is never advertised or marketed? Just about every Asian restaurant in the United States has a bottle of both sauces on their tables. That's pretty good advertising.
> 
> Huy Fong achieved that by forging relationship with several savvy distributors who marketed and sold it to restaurants, grocery stores, etc. so he didn't have to do it, but somebody did it.
> 
> ...


The Wong Fook Hing Book Shop doesn't advertise either....so HA!  It's a real place.


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

Placing Sriracha in every restaurant in the country is kinda like the condiment equivalent of permafree. All it takes is one taste!


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Placing Sriracha in every restaurant in the country is kinda like the condiment equivalent of permafree. All it takes is one taste!


Love it!

And that's why he didn't let the restaurants "white label" his sauces. His bottles with his logo, brand, address, phone number, and website.


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## MGalloway (Jun 21, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I'm not sure what other marketing they've done, but I'm willing to bet it's mostly word of mouth, whether that's between everyday folks in the grocery store or restaurant owners. Either way, it challenges the notion that no one will ever hear about or buy your product if you don't advertise it.


Along those lines, there is also a product called No-Ad sunblock, whose platform ironically states they do "no tv advertising" or use hype or gimmicks. Their products are everywhere, too. Yet they have FB, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube accounts. Sure, those accounts could technically be classified as "social media", but they are doing some kind of outreach, regardless of the terminology involved. It also took effort on someone's part to get stores to carry their products.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Not to be the wet blanket here, but I don't know of many (any) indies who are consistently selling well that don't market, and don't work very long hours, and aren't good at their craft.

If you want to see the effect of the "no marketing, just write more books" approach, look at Konrath's results. 2011, everyone was selling well. Boom. All good. 2012, no marketing, sales down 50%. 2013, Joe starts doing marketing (Select, BB) and sales double.

The bottom line is that book selling at Amazon is a retail business where visibility equates to sales. 

All the well-intentioned advice from folks who haven't got great sales is basically the equivalent of saying, "if you want sales like I've achieved with my system, do this." That's not to denigrate those who haven't sold much, but frankly, everyone's got an opinion. I'm way more interested in what a Joe Nobody or a Holly is doing than what someone selling nothing is doing, to use as my model. Call me crazy, but the approaches that don't yield strong results in the venue we're discussing (Amazon for ebooks) aren't of interest to me, except as cautionary tales. I posted my good natured "How not to sell books" post to highlight what you shouldn't do (in my opinion), and obviously after getting qualified help to edit, proof, create covers and format, intelligent, effective marketing is one of the things you need to do. That's not spin your wheels marketing that does no good. That's watch what those who are doing well in similar genres are doing, and learn from their approach.

Like it or not, in retail, you're only as good as your visibility. I have yet to hear a compelling argument for not marketing, and hoping or praying that your lack of visibility somehow morphs into great sales. Believe me, I'd love to not have to do any or much marketing, and just write, or fish, or drink, rather than all that nonsense. I just can't think of how that would be a recipe for anything but marginal sales.

Not to take the op's post off on a tangent. He asked for ideas for what he should do, and I told him my opinion. Sounds like he's going to follow that counsel, and if he keeps up the effort, I'd bet he'll see a substantial jump in sales over the next 6 months. Grab some popcorn and watch from home.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

Alan Petersen said:


> And that's why he didn't let the restaurants "white label" his sauces. His bottles with his logo, brand, address, phone number, and website.


Exactly right. He's paying tons of money to market his sauces and you know he's got a bunch of sales reps out there pitching them to every possible restaurant. He says he doesn't pay a penny for advertising, but that's not the same as quietly brewing his sauces in some little kitchen and waiting for the orders to pour in. If anything, this example is proving the point that you need to get out there and bust your tail to give your books visibility.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Scott William Carter said:


> So while I agree that you have to be honest with yourself how hard you're working at this, and working harder is generally better, the most important factor isn't effort. It's the quality of your decisions, all the way down to the words you put on the page one at a time.


...and truer words was never spoked.


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## donnajherren (Mar 7, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> "You know what's big right now? Superheroes! You know what else is big? Billionaire erotic romance! Let's mash them together!"


I would buy this so fast and so hard I would break a finger or my computer mouse or maybe both. Just sayin'. LOL


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

Basically you've just described Batman fan fiction.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

Joe Vasicek said:


> It wasn't just an assumption. The company is well-known for making the product itself their focus, and is doing very well in spite of the fact that they do no advertising:
> 
> source
> 
> I'm not sure what other marketing they've done, but I'm willing to bet it's mostly word of mouth, whether that's between everyday folks in the grocery store or restaurant owners. Either way, it challenges the notion that no one will ever hear about or buy your product if you don't advertise it.


Thank goodness he's just into hot sauces and doesn't start writing ebooks. We'd all be doomed. Now where's Julie to start talking about vacuum cleaners while we're on totally relevant things...


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## rjspears (Sep 25, 2011)

I'm a newbie to the self-publishing game and have been lurking on this thread for a few days.  This has been one of the most educational and depressing threads I've read.  Actually, it's three parts educational (my thanks to all who shared) and one part depressing.

Like it or not, this looks like the playing field.  I guess if you don't pay attention to it, you'll find yourself sitting at the end of the bench wondering why you never get in the game.

Again, thanks to everyone who shared and my special thanks goes to Mike for starting the conversation.  I'm hoping that some of these new strategies help you breakout of this sales slump. I just bought one of your books, so I hope that helps.

--
R.J. Spears


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## MGalloway (Jun 21, 2011)

This book may also give you some ideas. Some of the information in it is outdated now, but many of the concepts still hold up. It's loaded with ideas.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

MGalloway said:


> This book may also give you some ideas. Some of the information in it is outdated now, but many of the concepts still hold up. It's loaded with ideas.


From that book's blurb... 


> The authors of this text offer ideas for booking author events, signings, TV appearances and radio interviews, and they also show ways to capitalise on the* latest promotional trends, including the World Wide Web*.


I would say that book is way outdated.


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## AmsterdamAssassin (Oct 21, 2011)

Alan Petersen said:


> From that book's blurb...
> I would say that book is way outdated.


Yabutnobutyabut, it says, www for every link, so... so... that's the world wide web, isn't it?


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## lmckinley (Oct 3, 2012)

I don't know the right advertising-speak for this, but placement or "location" can be considered a kind of promotion. A grocery store section for Asian foods is not terribly big. People who go there are looking for something, and its easy to find what they want there. eBooks on Amazon, well, there are a lot of choices. Some have been able to do well being the big fish in a small pond - tapping into a market that doesn't have a lot of contributors. People writing thrillers, romance, and anything for sale on Amazon with its unlimited inventory space, are dealing with a different set of problems. 

No answers here at all, but I know this ground has been ENDLESSLY covered by people who know something about marketing. (Not me.)


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

lmckinley said:


> I don't know the right advertising-speak for this, but placement or "location" can be considered a kind of promotion. A grocery store section for Asian foods is not terribly big. People who go there are looking for something, and its easy to find what they want there. eBooks on Amazon, well, there are a lot of choices. Some have been able to do well being the big fish in a small pond - tapping into a market that doesn't have a lot of contributors. People writing thrillers, romance, and anything for sale on Amazon with its unlimited inventory space, are dealing with a different set of problems.
> 
> No answers here at all, but I know this ground has been ENDLESSLY covered by people who know something about marketing. (Not me.)


Good point. Joe Nobody talks about this in his interview on the Rocking Self-Publishing Podcast and I totally agree with his stance. Go to where YOUR readers are, and that's where you should be concentrating your promotional efforts and your advertising dollars. Can't much argue with that!


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

blakebooks said:


> I'm way more interested in what a Joe Nobody or a Holly is doing than what someone selling nothing is doing, to use as my model. Call me crazy, but the approaches that don't yield strong results in the venue we're discussing (Amazon for ebooks) aren't of interest to me, except as cautionary tales. I posted my good natured "How not to sell books" post to highlight what you shouldn't do (in my opinion), and obviously after getting qualified help to edit, proof, create covers and format, intelligent, effective marketing is one of the things you need to do. That's not spin your wheels marketing that does no good. That's watch what those who are doing well in similar genres are doing, and learn from their approach.


I agree, though I think it's simpler than that. There really are only two kinds of successful writers, and so only two models to emulate. The one kind-Konrath, for example-has never had a big hit. His success came from observing and testing the market, making the most of what he had to work with. Like you, I try to learn as much as I can from successes like that.

The second writer scored a hit with little or no promotion-he got lucky. Yes, yes, I know, you need a quality book to get lucky. But that doesn't change the fact that it was some unpredictable and unrepeatable combination of factors that brought it about. Yet the keep writing books approach is based on the guys who got lucky. It says that you should turn out books as quickly as you can and you'll one day get your hit too. I fail to see any value in what is essentially a lottery-ticket approach.

To be sure, there are differences within the first approach. But the key is to identify and then to emulate those whose success has come through the first approach. That way, you don't end up running around hoping to be struck by lightning.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

WHDean said:


> I agree, though I think it's simpler than that. There really are only two kinds of successful writers, and so only two models to emulate. The one kind-Konrath, for example-has never had a big hit. His success came from observing and testing the market, making the most of what he had to work with. Like you, I try to learn as much as I can from successes like that.
> 
> The second writer scored a hit with little or no promotion-he got lucky. Yes, yes, I know, you need a quality book to get lucky. But that doesn't change the fact that it was some unpredictable and unrepeatable combination of factors that brought it about. Yet the keep writing books approach is based on the guys who got lucky. It says that you should turn out books as quickly as you can and you'll one day get your hit too. I fail to see any value in what is essentially a lottery-ticket approach.
> 
> To be sure, there are differences within the first approach. But the key is to identify and then to emulate those whose success has come through the first approach. That way, you don't end up running around hoping to be struck by lightning.


Yeah, but even Konrath admits that luck is a huge factor in what he does. Like it or not, you're never going to be in full control of how well your books sell (but you are in control of how much you write). Also, there are as many definitions of "success" as there are people, and without coming to an understanding of what "success" means to you personally, you're setting yourself up for a miserable career.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

donnajherren said:


> I would buy this so fast and so hard I would break a finger or my computer mouse or maybe both. Just sayin'. LOL


Lol. I think I took it out of my sig in the last rotation. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DZV1SB6

I was actually eyeing your books the other day as well. You've got some awesome genre-blendiness going on there too, and it really seems to be working for you. Right on!



MeiLinMiranda said:


> Basically you've just described Batman fan fiction.


Yup, I had Fifty Shades of Batman as my subtitle for a while.



WHDean said:


> The second writer scored a hit with little or no promotion-he got lucky. Yes, yes, I know, you need a quality book to get lucky. But that doesn't change the fact that it was some unpredictable and unrepeatable combination of factors that brought it about. Yet the keep writing books approach is based on the guys who got lucky. It says that you should turn out books as quickly as you can and you'll one day get your hit too. I fail to see any value in what is essentially a lottery-ticket approach.


Chances of being successful as a writer are way better than the lottery, though, right? I mean, there aren't nearly as many people writing books as there are people buying lottery tickets. And there are even less writers who write 4+ or even 10+ books a year. I'm in a tough place right now with my finances and my sales, so I'm a bit gloomy about the whole thing at the moment, but overall, writing lots of books has worked well for me. There are lots of people who do better than me, but there are more people who do worse. We'd have to quibble over what is meant by "value," I suppose, in regards to the "lottery-ticket" approach, to be sure.


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## MGalloway (Jun 21, 2011)

Alan Petersen said:


> I would say that book is way outdated.


Actually, the greater takeaway value isn't necessarily in the links themselves (there are several in the book) or even some of the sites/services/phone numbers they discuss. All that can change over the years with any marketing book, especially if the authors/publishers do not keep producing new editions. The value comes in illustrating the broad range of possibilities that are available to an author in terms of promotion, which is helpful in thinking in a more out-of-the-box way. Those possibilities have multiplied as time has gone on, but the fundamental concepts remain fairly static.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

valeriec80 said:


> I'm in a tough place right now with my finances and my sales, so I'm a bit gloomy about the whole thing at the moment, but overall, writing lots of books has worked well for me.


I'd just like to say, Valerie - your effing covers are gorgeous.  I heart them. Like so much.


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## pauldude000 (May 22, 2013)

I hate to put it this way, but everyone tries to put things into a box.

Write more books
Write great books
Write,write,write

The problem is that *selling books* involves more than writing. As independent publishers... we are the whole self-publishing shebang. Publishing is not writing. Writing a book has nothing to do with self-publishing it. Publishing is the business side of the equation that comes only after a book is written. Publishing is the business of *selling books* that have been written.

Most authors want to write and not worry about the selling aspect, which I can understand; I share the sentiment.

However, to sell books, you have to actually sell the books. Amazon is an ocean of books. You could have two thousand books of low ranking get lost in the sea of competition as assuredly as a bottle with a note in it cast willy-nilly into the Atlantic. However, the techniques for selling anything on amazon is no great secret.

1. You have to have a product to sell. (Write a book)
2. People have to find your product. (SEO keywords and description, place product into appropriate categories, and advertise) 
3. People have to like you product enough to risk buying it. (A compelling cover, accurate and enticing description, and through social feedback<feedback, social buzz, word of mouth, etc.>)
4. People have to enjoy your product enough to contribute to advertising and ranking. (Good story, plot, pacing, editing, etc.)

This is true whether selling books, tires, or toilet paper on Amazon. Where most sellers fall short is on description, and search engine optimization of their product.

People that refuse to confront the unpleasant selling aspect are actually expecting their webpage (book) to be found accidentally on Google (Amazon). There is a reason why any book is 99 pages back on any search list. That book will stay 99 pages back on the search list if the problems causing it to be there are not fixed. The quality of that book is not the issue, as there are plenty of books much worse in quality in the top 100 in genre. Writing 1000 books will not help if the same mistakes are made on each of them.

Amazon is not a brick and mortar store. Amazon is just a warehouse that sells stuff. The customer entrance and showroom is a search engine.


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## Robert Bidinotto (Mar 3, 2011)

I agree largely with the perspective and emphasis in Brian D. Anderson's posts. I really think the path to commercial success is not necessarily quantity, but an obsessive focus on the quality of your writing.

But let me be clear what I mean by "quality." I don't only mean "craftsmanship," although professionalism is extremely important. Still, a meticulously written story can be a dull, unimaginative affair. When I think of the super-selling books, though, what they have in common are _unique themes, plots, and characters_. They stand out from the pack as something fresh and distinctive. They have provocative themes, unusual settings, memorable characters. And THAT is why they become "visible"...often, without much of a marketing push.

Hunger Games. A Silo world. A hulking, ex-Army vigilante drifter. An ape-man who lives in the jungle. An arrogant London private detective with an encyclopedic memory and dazzling powers of observation, induction, and deduction. A hunt for a giant man-eating shark. A hunt for a giant ship-killing white whale. A park where cloned dinosaurs roam. A magical baseball field in a cornfield, where the ghosts of legendary players return. A WWII German assassination plot against Churchill. A contract killer's quest to assassinate Charles DeGaulle. An Australian girl torn between two lovers -- one, a young Catholic priest. A willful young woman in the Civil War torn between a gentleman who represents the Old South, and a dashing rogue who represents the emerging postwar era. A boy wizard in a school for wizards. A small group of Allied commandos who must take out two giant German guns poised to decimate their navy. A Soviet nuclear sub commander's desperate quest to escape to the West with his vessel. A female bail bondsman who gets into wacky adventures.

And so it goes. Big or small, international or intimate, these stories and characters grab readers' imaginations -- and that all important "discoverability" -- _because they stand out from the pack_. They're distinctive. They're fresh. So much so that they become their own brands in our minds .

By contrast, when I scan the titles and covers, or read the product descriptions, of most books on Amazon, the overwhelming majority don't grab me and aren't memorable. How many thriller covers have a small shadow image of some running figure against a city backdrop? How many romance covers have bare male chests and heaving breasts? Pick your genre, and the titles and covers often seem interchangeable. Worse, the product descriptions don't suggest that the novel is...well..._novel_. And so they all disappear, drowning under waves of familiarity, similarity, repetition. Worst of all, that same familiarity, similarity, and repetition are found inside the book, in the plots and characters. And in a series, a once-unique premise or hero too often becomes stale, subjected to recycling.

So, I think the emphasis on rapidly producing lots of books, or on figuring out all sorts of tactics and gimmicks to market them, is misplaced. Those things certainly can be important to long-term career success, but I think they are secondary. They become important tools only IF you focus primarily on creating with inventive stories and characters that grab people's imaginations. The main way to capture visibility, or discoverability is not what you do TO your story, but what you do IN it.


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## olefish (Jan 24, 2012)

Robert Bidinotto said:


> I agree largely with the perspective and emphasis in Brian D. Anderson's posts. I really think the path to commercial success is not necessarily quantity, but an obsessive focus on the quality of your writing.
> 
> But let me be clear what I mean by "quality." I don't only mean "craftsmanship," although professionalism is extremely important. Still, a meticulously written story can be a dull, unimaginative affair. When I think of the super-selling books, though, what they have in common are _unique themes, plots, and characters_. They stand out from the pack as something fresh and distinctive. They have provocative themes, unusual settings, memorable characters. And THAT is why they become "visible"...often, without much of a marketing push.
> 
> ...


I don't find this true at all. Originality isn't what dominates the top 100. Personally, a lot of I what I find that's selling like hotcakes aren't original to me. (I'm not accusing anybody here, not am I taking away the effort it takes to sell like hotcakes.) As for cover originality, I dunno, I'd direct you to the romance top 100 and you'd find that even though the covers are samey looking, people are still able to find gems.

I'm not saying originality isn't important. It's more a problem of timing that anything else. When fifty shades of grey came, a slew of billionaire erotica flooded the market. It satisfied readers for a while, until fatigue, and then NA came onto the scene. Readers are so hungry for NA romances, that it sells itself out of the gate. Now whether you're good or not will determine your staying power. That trend too is feeling some fatigue until someone leads another wave. It's nice to be the one to set the trend, but you have no control on whether it would pick up. Do you want that lone writer trying to pump out NA books when billionaire romances were dominating the lists? Now in a period of NA mania, I thing you'd find it hard going to set your trend of, say I dunno, (office romances with a male sub theme). Now the craze for post-apocalytic horror settings.

I'm not saying you shouldn't carve your niche. I think given how hard writing is, then you might as well carve your original niche. But it's a delicate balance offering something so original that readers don't balk at it, or something that's familiar but different. And then you have to hope that you are on the downswing of a reigning trend and hope your niche is what's picked up.

Yeah, I won't play timing the book market. It's easier to just write put good readable books that are well placed within a genre and go from there.


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## Aya Ling (Nov 21, 2012)

Robert Bidinotto said:


> By contrast, when I scan the titles and covers, or read the product descriptions, of most books on Amazon, the overwhelming majority don't grab me and aren't memorable. How many thriller covers have a small shadow image of some running figure against a city backdrop? How many romance covers have bare male chests and heaving breasts? Pick your genre, and the titles and covers often seem interchangeable. Worse, the product descriptions don't suggest that the novel is...well..._novel_. And so they all disappear, drowning under waves of familiarity, similarity, repetition. Worst of all, that same familiarity, similarity, and repetition are found inside the book, in the plots and characters. And in a series, a once-unique premise or hero too often becomes stale, subjected to recycling.


As a reader, I agree. I subscribe to Bookbub and Pixel of Ink, and usually end up getting non-fiction titles only (and some KB writers' books!). I'm immune to all the vampires, the rich playboys, the saving America/world/earth themes--_unless_ there's a really good twist in it! But I guess I'm in the minority--the books I skip over are still selling well!


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## chrissponias (Sep 22, 2013)

Mike Dennis said:


> I've heard it over and over and over. The mantra: "Write more books. That's the surefire way to increase sales!"
> 
> Here's my record.
> 
> ...


Producing more is not always the answer if you are not writing better with time, or if you are not writing what your readers want to read.

It's very dangerous to simply follow your inspiration.

I prefer nonfiction because you are more objective. You give solutions to various problems.

People need solutions because they have problems. They buy ebooks looking for information because they need help.


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2013)

Robert Bidinotto said:


> I agree largely with the perspective and emphasis in Brian D. Anderson's posts. I really think the path to commercial success is not necessarily quantity,


Great post!


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Well, there's no way I'm going to crank out another book before the super-duper xmas bookbuying bonanza. I don't have time for NaNoWriMo - if I want to write, I write.

What I will do is focus on marketing what I have. 
And that includes taking a very close look at what I'm selling. I have a small audience (I barely broke 200 sales this month) but it seems to me that many who like my stories like them a LOT. Why? The characters? Pace? Plot? Looking through the reviews will show some of that, as well as my shortcomings.
It should give me an idea of the direction I should take/maintain. This product development, too, is marketing because it shapes my brand. I need to know what my brand should be before I can build it and promote it.

I'm going to try some different advertising/promotion avenues that I haven't tried and, yes, some of that will cost money. Why shouldn't it? It's a business.

I enjoyed reading Robert B.'s post. Part of my work over this next little while will also involve looking ahead and creating some plot ideas, interesting characters, novel settings for the next three books. I write soft sci-fi with spaceships and lasers but that doesn't mean I have to write formula.

Writing _more_, for me, is not the answer because I just can't, both because of time constraints and the fact that plot development is a very slow and painful process for me (maybe _because_ I don't like formula). 
What I need is a decent marketing plan and a solid idea of what I am and what I want to do, as a writer. I want to be an author, not a pen name. So that's where I'm focused this fall.


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

Mike Dennis said:


> I've heard it over and over and over. The mantra: "Write more books. That's the surefire way to increase sales!"
> 
> Here's my record.


Incidentally, here are the dates and sales figures from the original post. The books were in Select for most of this period. I've added a couple notes:

Jan 2012 6 titles 1077 sales
April 2012 7 titles 745 sales

*May 5, 2012: Algo change*

May 2012 8 titles 383 sales
Aug 2012 9 titles 159 sales

*May-June, 2013: Algo change*

July 2013 10 titles 90 sales
Sept 2013 11 titles 65 sales
Oct 2013 still 11 titles 42 sales

The first change radically decreased the value of a freebie in the popularity lists, reducing them to approximately 1/10 their former value. The second change more or less eliminated their weight on the lists altogether.

So another way to interpret these figures is as a barometer of the effectiveness of Select.


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## Guest (Oct 30, 2013)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> The books were in Select for most of this period.


That explains a lot. I've always seen Select as a system with very short-term gains at the expense of long-term strategy, and not a very good way to build a faithful audience. This would seem to confirm that.


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## Robert Bidinotto (Mar 3, 2011)

BTW, I've expanded on what I posted above on this thread, in this blog post:

http://www.bidinotto.com/2013/10/the-real-key-to-strong-book-sales/

Just to be honest: I had blithely gone along with the "quantity idea" myself, because on its face, it seemed to make sense. More books = more visibility, right? But then you pause to ask: What can even a prolific author's "quantity" do to win visibility, when measured against the vast and ever-growing "quantity" of titles available on outlets like Amazon?

It was stupid of me not to realize that, and to more strongly emphasize the importance of "positioning," of "branding," of striving to be distinctive and stand out. Now, in fairness to myself, that IS one of my major "ten marketing tips" that I emphasized in another blog post. But still, I've been pushing, somewhat out of context, the notion of "writing more books" as a vital career marketing move.

Yes, that works...but only IF you have achieved visibility by other means -- "positioning" and "branding" being among the most important. IF you do such things to gain visibility, THEN having a lot of titles will bring you great sales; but simply issuing a lot of titles per se won't necessarily bring you great visibility and sales. That's the fallacy of the "quantity" approach, IMHO.


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## Guest (Oct 31, 2013)

olefish said:


> I don't find this true at all. Originality isn't what dominates the top 100. Personally, a lot of I what I find that's selling like hotcakes aren't original to me. (I'm not accusing anybody here, not am I taking away the effort it takes to sell like hotcakes.) As for cover originality, I dunno, I'd direct you to the romance top 100 and you'd find that even though the covers are samey looking, people are still able to find gems.
> 
> I'm not saying originality isn't important. It's more a problem of timing that anything else. When fifty shades of grey came, a slew of billionaire erotica flooded the market. It satisfied readers for a while, until fatigue, and then NA came onto the scene. Readers are so hungry for NA romances, that it sells itself out of the gate. Now whether you're good or not will determine your staying power. That trend too is feeling some fatigue until someone leads another wave. It's nice to be the one to set the trend, but you have no control on whether it would pick up. Do you want that lone writer trying to pump out NA books when billionaire romances were dominating the lists? Now in a period of NA mania, I thing you'd find it hard going to set your trend of, say I dunno, (office romances with a male sub theme). Now the craze for post-apocalytic horror settings.
> 
> ...


Quality and originality are not the same thing. None of us are truly original. You can jump up and down and say "I am too original" but that's only a case of self delusion with a dash of arrogance. We are a product of experience guided by influences. The thought of trying to reinvent the wheel is insane. Millions of stories have been told so many times through the years the odds on coming up with something 100% original are extremely slim - bordering on zero. Perhaps you may think of something original from your singular perspective, but chances are good someone else, somewhere along the line during the thousands of years of human history, has beat you to it.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

As a counterpoint, Robert, 

I am not trying to gain visibility among the 2 million+ Amazon titles. I'm trying to gain visibility in much more discrete areas > Romance > Contemporary Romance > Contemporary Erotic Romance > Contemporary Erotic Romance featuring XYZ. And by doing so I am including positioning and branding in my business plans. And it hasn't been a chicken/egg conundrum of which came first (a) 20 titles in a discrete area or (b) branding/positioning -- they developed hand in hand in hand.


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## Robert Bidinotto (Mar 3, 2011)

By "originality" I'm not talking about the literary equivalent of splitting the atom, or putting the first man on Mars. I'm talking about taking old elements and using them in fresh, distinctive ways. The marketing classic _Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind_ by Al Ries and Jack Trout describes and goes into great detail on what I'm talking about, and I highly recommend it.

Vampire stories are old. What Stephanie Meyers did with them was fresh and distinctive. Urban vigilante characters are many. What Lee Child did with Jack Reacher was fresh and distinctive. Dystopian societies of the future are endless. What Hugh Howey did by sticking one in an underground silo was fresh and distinctive. Quite apart from their writing abilities, they also poured old wine into new bottles, and that made them stand out.

Quality is one hurdle for any author to surmount. But lots of high-quality writing remains trapped in obscurity. All I'm talking about is a factor that allows some good writing to emerge and be seen, while lots of other good writing remains invisible. In that, I look at the "breakout" books and ask, "What do these authors/works have in common, if anything?" And what I find, again and again, is something unique and distinctive -- whether its character, style and voice, setting, plot premise, or theme. They stand out from the crowd.

And if they also do so in a way that taps into something deep in the cultural zeitgeist, they can become mega-bestsellers. But even if they don't do that, they can still tap into something common to readers of a genre or subgenre.

Which brings me to Crista Wick's point, which is exactly correct. You are competing only with the slew of books in a genre or subgenre. But the same principle apples, even though the number of competitors isn't as great. You still need to stand out. I'll defer to the "Positioning" book, which explains all this, and which I highly recommend.


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## Guest (Oct 31, 2013)

Robert Bidinotto said:


> By "originality" I'm not talking about the literary equivalent of splitting the atom, or putting the first man on Mars. I'm talking about taking old elements and using them in fresh, distinctive ways. The marketing classic _Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind_ by Al Ries and Jack Trout describes and goes into great detail on what I'm talking about, and I highly recommend it.
> 
> Vampire stories are old. What Stephanie Meyers did with them was fresh and distinctive. Urban vigilante characters are many. What Lee Child did with Jack Reacher was fresh and distinctive. Dystopian societies of the future are endless. What Hugh Howey did by sticking one in an underground silo was fresh and distinctive. Quite apart from their writing abilities, they also poured old wine into new bottles, and that made them stand out.
> 
> ...


Sadly there are many very good books that never see the success they deserve. But it's the same with anything one may try to do. Sometimes it has as much to do with luck as anything else. That is something impossible to factor in. But what I have been stressing is that releasing more books is not as desirable as releasing good books. And when I say good books I mean edited (with a real editor who tells you what your need to hear, not what you want to hear. And not just someone just correcting your grammar and taking your money), proofed a few times at least, properly formatted, and with a well thought, well produced cover. If this takes time away from releasing more books, so be it. If your books are sellers, you end up with a loyal readership who knows you to be a good writer who puts out professional books. That's the writer who, ten years from now, will still be making a good living doing what they love.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Robert Bidinotto said:


> I agree largely with the perspective and emphasis in Brian D. Anderson's posts. I really think the path to commercial success is not necessarily quantity, but an obsessive focus on the quality of your writing.
> 
> But let me be clear what I mean by "quality." I don't only mean "craftsmanship," although professionalism is extremely important. Still, a meticulously written story can be a dull, unimaginative affair. When I think of the super-selling books, though, what they have in common are _unique themes, plots, and characters_. They stand out from the pack as something fresh and distinctive. They have provocative themes, unusual settings, memorable characters. And THAT is why they become "visible"...often, without much of a marketing push.
> 
> ...


I was thinking the complete opposite. If anything, it seems that the books I pick up in the contemporary romance department are all the same. Rich, mysterious, dominant guy. Flighty and normal girl who tries to put him in his place. Usually she works for him or something of the sort. Crazy/slutty roommate. Mother who is on her third husband or more. I figure that there is a formula, and I admit, I'm going to read as many as these books as I can to pick up the formula and use it for myself.

That said, I suppose if you want a breakout hit, you should do something different from other people. I suppose Stephenie Meyer's stories were original at the time, in that I guess that there were no other stories about vampires falling for humans (not sure about that, that is just my guess). But Fifty Shades of Grey is nothing more than the bodice-ripper of old brought into the 21st Century with some spanking and such, so not sure why that particular book broke out. And that book spawned a whole slew of clones that are all doing well.

I am thinking now that to have a hit, you need to bite the bullet and follow the formula. At least that is what I gather from my top-sellers that are sitting on my Kindle, waiting to be read.


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## Robert Bidinotto (Mar 3, 2011)

I absolutely agree with every word of that, Brian, 100%. Professionalism is foundational. Solid writing, edited, proofread, professional cover...all things that I have emphasized, including here:

http://www.bidinotto.com/2013/03/10-winning-marketing-strategies-for-your-self-published-book/

My comments in this thread are meant for those fine authors who _have_ attended to all these professional responsibilities. I just want to make them aware that, if they wish to boost their sales, they should try to differentiate and "brand" themselves in some unique way, in order to stand out and become "discoverable."

If a writer does _not_ have a well-written, edited, proofread, neatly formatted book, with a good cover, and a compelling, proofread product description, then he had jolly better hope that his book will NEVER become "visible" to many readers -- because his lack of professionalism will repel those readers from any of his future works.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

BrianDAnderson said:


> But what I have been stressing is that releasing more books is not as desirable as releasing good books. And when I say good books I mean edited (with a real editor who tells you what your need to hear, not what you want to hear. And not just someone just correcting your grammar and taking your money), proofed a few times at least, properly formatted, and with a well thought, well produced cover.


Well that describes the vast majority of trad books published--and yet most are mediocre and some are still dreck. A house can have good bones but be terribly decorated inside.

A "good" book to me has to have a certain degree of unputdownability.


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## Guest (Oct 31, 2013)

Eric C said:


> Well that describes the vast majority of trad books published--and yet most are mediocre and some are still dreck. A house can have good bones but be terribly decorated inside.
> 
> A "good" book to me has to have a certain degree of unputdownability.


It also describes a great many indie books. Being with a large publishing house certainly gives you greater resources regarding editing and proofing; not to mention marketing. But as an indie these thing fall to us for the most part. And as we have decided to take on such a monumental task, short-cutting becomes a cop out. People get paid very well to do the things that an indie assumes as his/her responsibility. Thinking that you can get away with releasing a substandard product and gain any lasting credibility is laughable. This speaks to presentation and professional polish. We may not have the vast resources of a Big Six publisher , but we can still do a good job. The "unputdownability" of any book is subjective, so there's no point to comment on that.


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## Lizbooks (Mar 15, 2013)

anniejocoby said:


> I suppose Stephenie Meyer's stories were original at the time, in that I guess that there were no other stories about vampires falling for humans (not sure about that, that is just my guess). But Fifty Shades of Grey is nothing more than the bodice-ripper of old brought into the 21st Century with some spanking and such, so not sure why that particular book broke out. And that book spawned a whole slew of clones that are all doing well.


A large part of Twilight's success was due to very clever marketing. The publisher sent Meyer out to meet librarians and book buyers all across the country to build up support. A big part of her success lies there--in the fact that so many influencers were recommending the book. The publisher also did things like Twilight proms, many of which Meyer attended, to generate enthusiasm in young fans. That combination--targeting the fans themselves and appealing to major influencers--increased the word of mouth until things hit critical mass.

50 Shades, well... BDSM romances had been popular before it broke out. It hit the mainstream because of the Twilight connection and rode its coattails to success.

Indie authors may not have the resources of Meyer's publisher, but we can still use the basic techniques. The key, though, is that you do have to have work that will appeal to a large amount of people. I think Elle Casey brought this up in a post somewhere--if you want the largest amount of sales *per book* you have to write in a genre with a large audience. If you write in a smaller niche, you need more books to make more money, because you're earning less per book. (Does that make sense?)


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## Gone To Croatan (Jun 24, 2011)

Lizbooks said:


> 50 Shades, well... BDSM romances had been popular before it broke out. It hit the mainstream because of the Twilight connection and rode its coattails to success.


Didn't the writer work in TV? That probably helped a lot.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> That explains a lot. I've always seen Select as *a system with very short-term gains at the expense of long-term strategy*, and not a very good way to build a faithful audience. This would seem to confirm that.


Why should short-term gains and long-term strategy be mutually exclusive? I want both for my books and the books I manage.

Which would you prefer: 
*1*. Start out selling 2000 books a month and 2 years later be selling 50 books a month, or 
*2*. Start out selling 2 books a month and 2 years later be selling 50 books a month?

I might personally *feel* like more of a failure with *1*, but my bank account would beg to differ. And it's gonna take a lot of years at *2* to catch up with the monetary success of *1*, if catching up is even possible.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

I want someone to write this book.



> Hunger Games. A Silo world. A hulking, ex-Army vigilante drifter. An ape-man who lives in the jungle. An arrogant London private detective with an encyclopedic memory and dazzling powers of observation, induction, and deduction. A hunt for a giant man-eating shark. A hunt for a giant ship-killing white whale. A park where cloned dinosaurs roam. A magical baseball field in a cornfield, where the ghosts of legendary players return. A WWII German assassination plot against Churchill. A contract killer's quest to assassinate Charles DeGaulle. An Australian girl torn between two lovers -- one, a young Catholic priest. A willful young woman in the Civil War torn between a gentleman who represents the Old South, and a dashing rogue who represents the emerging postwar era. A boy wizard in a school for wizards. A small group of Allied commandos who must take out two giant German guns poised to decimate their navy. A Soviet nuclear sub commander's desperate quest to escape to the West with his vessel. A female bail bondsman who gets into wacky adventures.


 Just don't forget the dominating billionaire.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

BrianDAnderson said:


> The "unputdownability" of any book is subjective, so there's no point to comment on that.


Disagree. The development of concept and the execution are part of the craft of fiction writing.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Why should short-term gains and long-term strategy be mutually exclusive? I want both for my books and the books I manage.
> 
> Which would you prefer:
> *1*. Start out selling 2000 books a month and 2 years later be selling 50 books a month, or
> ...


Well, if that's the way things are going to end up anyway, then perhaps writing more books _is_ the answer.

The trouble with Select is the exclusivity requirement. It might get you sales, but is it the best way to get fans? Not everyone gets their book fix from Amazon, and even if the majority of them do, keeping Amazon as your only income source is still a bad long-term strategy. It might take a long time to build a decent following on the other sites, but that's where patience comes in--patience, and consistently writing more books.

So I suspect that it actually looks more like this:

*1.* Start out selling 2000 books a month (with Select) and 2 years later be selling <20 books a month, with new releases falling flat, or
*2.* Start out selling 10 books a month (without Select) and 2 years later be selling >100 books a month, across all sites, with backlist titles driving sales of new releases and vice versa.

Short-term and long-term strategies aren't always mutually exclusive, but with the exclusivity requirement of Select, I think this is a case where they are.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

> The "unputdownability" of any book is subjective, so there's no point to comment on that.





Eric C said:


> Disagree. The development of concept and the execution are part of the craft of fiction writing.


I think what the person means by unputdownability being suggestive depends on the reader.
A book I might not want to put down may be one that you want to throw across the room.
Unputdownability is on the reader not the author.
I understand one author here writes fantastic books but I cannot get into those books.
Another author also writes fantastic books and his I will try to read in one sitting.

Now you may love the first author and not like the second author.
The idea that I can't pick up one book and can't put down another has absolutely nothing to do with the author and everything to do with me.
It is a matter of the reader's taste.
Oh and yes both those authors have over 1M sold.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> So I suspect that it actually looks more like this:
> 
> *1.* Start out selling 2000 books a month (with Select) and 2 years later be selling <20 books a month, with new releases falling flat, or
> *2.* Start out selling 10 books a month (without Select) and 2 years later be selling >100 books a month, across all sites, with backlist titles driving sales of new releases and vice versa.


All right. In your example, let's say the "start out" is 3 months, and that the reach on other sites in more than what you'll find on Amazon. And we'll make it simple by saying the next 21 months are at their worst for 1 and best for 2.

1. 6000 books + 21 months X 20 sales = 6420 sales at the end of 2 years
2. 30 books + 21 months X 100 sales = 2130 sales at the end of 2 years

With "start out" at only 2 months:
1 = 4440 sales at the end of 2 years
2 =2220 sales at the end of 2 years

With "start out" just in the first month:
1 = 2460 sales at the end of 2 years
2 = 2310 sales at the end of 2 years

I'm still better off with short-term success over a longer period of time. And somewhere in there the sales model will change, whether from changes the author makes or those the market forces. If the author is using best practices to build their audience, it doesn't matter whether they're building it on one venue or across multiple. The collapse or the growth will be similar. Why should I be able to build audience across other venues and not Amazon? That's counter to what the data shows happens the majority of the time.

Still, when the blush is off the short-term, it's time to make a change (hence, the "short-term" designation). Does that mean you never employ the short-term tools? Well, see the math above. I like numbers. They make making decisions far more objective.


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## Eric C (Aug 3, 2009)

cinisajoy said:


> I think what the person means by unputdownability being suggestive depends on the reader.
> A book I might not want to put down may be one that you want to throw across the room.
> Unputdownability is on the reader not the author.
> I understand one author here writes fantastic books but I cannot get into those books.
> ...


What makes a book unputdownable is no more subjective than a "good" editor or a "good" book cover, it seems to me. Not every reader reacts the same to the same book cover, for example. So we shouldn't talk of book covers either?


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Eric C said:


> What makes a book unputdownable is no more subjective than a "good" editor or a "good" book cover, it seems to me. Not every reader reacts the same to the same book cover, for example. So we shouldn't talk of book covers either?


Now covers are another story. Covers are used to attract readers or in some cases follow the reader around the internet till the reader finally goes OK I will take you home with me.
Covers are one of the things that sells books so they need to be good or convey a message. Covers usually say what genre they are in so yes we should talk about them. And yes all authors should write unputdownable books to their target audience.
Now I must ask you a question: Do you buy books based on who edited them? 
And it is late can we continue this idea tomorrow?


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> All right. In your example, let's say the "start out" is 3 months, and that the reach on other sites in more than what you'll find on Amazon. And we'll make it simple by saying the next 21 months are at their worst for 1 and best for 2.
> 
> 1. 6000 books + 21 months X 20 sales = 6420 sales at the end of 2 years
> 2. 30 books + 21 months X 100 sales = 2130 sales at the end of 2 years
> ...


You cannot predict anything in this industry with that kind of precision, especially with how quickly things are changing. Also, 2 years is itself a very short-term period. When I started to pursue writing seriously, I figured it would take me 10 years to achieve any appreciable degree of success. Right now, I'm going on year 7. Copyright extends well past the life of the author, and I want my books to be earning money for at least the next 50 years.

I still think exclusivity is a bad strategy, and will harm you in the long-term. Gaming the algorithms may get you marginally better visibility for a fleeting moment, but at what cost? Is it the best way to win fans? Because I think that that's the answer to the conundrum posed by the OP: writing and publishing such a way that you're building a loyal fan base, independent of Amazon or any other bookselling ecosystem.


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## ingrid avluv (Feb 15, 2013)

Mike Dennis said:


> Anyone else out there experiencing this?


I am now, but not for such a long period as you. My sales continued to rise steadily for 2 years but they've been falling now since August. I publish an average of 4 times a month (short stuff, ~10,000 words).


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

Joe Vasicek said:


> You cannot predict anything in this industry with that kind of precision, especially with how quickly things are changing. Also, 2 years is itself a very short-term period. When I started to pursue writing seriously, I figured it would take me 10 years to achieve any appreciable degree of success. Right now, I'm going on year 7. Copyright extends well past the life of the author, and I want my books to be earning money for at least the next 50 years.


So if I'm following you right...you'd rather make squat in sales now under the assumption that somehow you're preparing yourself for many more sales in the future...while also simultaneously saying the future is thoroughly unpredictable due to how much change we're currently experiencing.

Let me see if I can rephrase this:

"I'd rather forgo things like Bookbub and ENT now, while they clearly work, under the guise of a slow and steady growth to prepare for a future that I have no clue will be like, and when things like Bookbub may no longer work, because the one or two fans a month I gain from low sales are surely going to be more loyal than the thousands who might buy my books otherwise."

Well Joe, to that I say...good luck?

_David, David, David. --Betsy_


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Copyright extends well past the life of the author, and I want my books to be earning money for at least the next 50 years.


This is charming and optimistic and I like it.
Trouble is, we don't even know where our books will be two years from now, never mind 50.
Someone with better math skills than me can run the figures but at the present rate of publication of books (leaving out shorts, porn, serials, etc) that are well-received by readers, the market will be so clogged with books in 50 years that any of them receiving visibility is unlikely unless you can establish yourself with a huge fan base before we are all crushed under the sheer weight of our collective output.


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## 41419 (Apr 4, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I still think exclusivity is a bad strategy, and will harm you in the long-term.


Debora Geary has been all-in with Select since Day 1. How has she been harmed exactly?


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

dgaughran said:


> Debora Geary has been all-in with Select since Day 1. How has she been harmed exactly?


I think it's perfectly valid to take a small ball approach to writing, to seek out a niche and enjoy writing for a smaller audience. Every writer is going to have different goals. The problem I see in Joe's advice is that he keeps making advice that is almost tailor-made to limit sales and then claiming that no, it's a better, wider strategy in the long run.

It's a tough business already. There's no reason to make it even harder for yourself.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

cinisajoy said:


> Covers are one of the things that sells books so they need to be good or convey a message.


I totally agree with this esp. for self-pubbed books. I just saw a horrible new cover for one of my fave tradpub author's new book. I'm so disappointed that they didn't get a better cover artist. I will still read the book, but I have a bad feeling about the novel now. If not for the NAME of the author, I would have passed on this book based on the cover alone. LOL.

Here is the crying shame of what could have been a great cover. Can the cover can any more bland? Poor Joe.









Source: http://josephfinder.com/books/suspicion/buy



cinisajoy said:


> Now I must ask you a question: Do you buy books based on who edited them?


I'm not the poster to whom you're responding, but just chiming in that sometimes I don't buy the ebooks if I see that the same editor has edited other books that have received bad reviews on grammar though it's hard to tell if the editor was hired after the books have been reviewed.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

David 'Half-Orc' Dalglish said:


> So if I'm following you right...you'd rather make squat in sales now under the assumption that somehow you're preparing yourself for many more sales in the future...while also simultaneously saying the future is thoroughly unpredictable due to how much change we're currently experiencing.
> 
> Let me see if I can rephrase this:
> 
> ...


Where did I say anything about foregoing bookbub and ENT? All I'm talking about is the foolishness of limiting the places where people can find my books before I've built an audience.


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## Darren Wearmouth (Jan 28, 2013)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Where did I say anything about foregoing bookbub and ENT? All I'm talking about is the foolishness of limiting the places where people can find my books before I've built an audience.


I chose to be in select so I could focus on Amazon in terms of promotion, the 'units borrowed' number also make up for about a quarter of my sales. I personally didn't believe that spreading myself thin with a debut novel was the right way to go, I weighed it up, there was nothing 'foolish' about the decision.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

cinisajoy said:


> I think what the person means by unputdownability being suggestive depends on the reader.
> A book I might not want to put down may be one that you want to throw across the room.
> Unputdownability is on the reader not the author.
> I understand one author here writes fantastic books but I cannot get into those books.
> Another author also writes fantastic books and his I will try to read in one sitting.


Yes, but no.  There are certain things that turn a vast portion of the population off, but at the same time turn a vast portion of the population on. Like car chases. A really good car chase opening up a novel will hook a bunch of people, but annoy a bunch of other people. Or a sexy dude saying sexy alpha-male things--some will love, others will hate. So, in that case, yes. You are right. Unputdownability is down to taste.

But if a book opens up with a long description of the MC brushing his teeth, and then continues with a detailed explanation of him using the toilet, and then details his walk to work, complete with his looking at the trees and sky and comparing them to statues on display in a museum and goes on and on in this way for the next 70 pages, during which absolutely nothing happens, well...

That book is putdownable. To darn near everyone.

So, some things are taste. Some things are boring. And a writer does herself no favors to write boring books.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

Quiss said:


> This is charming and optimistic and I like it.
> Trouble is, we don't even know where our books will be two years from now, never mind 50.
> Someone with better math skills than me can run the figures but at the present rate of publication of books (leaving out shorts, porn, serials, etc) that are well-received by readers, the market will be so clogged with books in 50 years that any of them receiving visibility is unlikely unless you can establish yourself with a huge fan base before we are all crushed under the sheer weight of our collective output.


That's assuming that bookselling is a zero-sub game, and that the books I'll be writing fifty years from now won't help to sell the stuff I'm writing now. I think there are still plenty of reasons to be optimistic.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

dgaughran said:


> Debora Geary has been all-in with Select since Day 1. How has she been harmed exactly?


Never heard of her. Why should I assume her experience is going to be like mine, or that I should change my strategy based on one person?


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

MichaelWallace said:


> I think it's perfectly valid to take a small ball approach to writing, to seek out a niche and enjoy writing for a smaller audience. Every writer is going to have different goals. The problem I see in Joe's advice is that he keeps making advice that is almost tailor-made to limit sales and then claiming that no, it's a better, wider strategy in the long run.
> 
> It's a tough business already. There's no reason to make it even harder for yourself.


I wonder if the OP isn't experiencing a decline in sales because he's gamed the algorithms too much--that is, so many different kinds of people have downloaded his books through broad promos and freebies that the algorithms don't know who to recommend him to. Is it always a good thing to get more people to download your books? I don't know--maybe, but if it comes at the expense of being better able to target the people who are your natural audience, maybe not. Taking the wide view of the world, almost all of us are writing to some sort of niche.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Never heard of her. Why should I assume her experience is going to be like mine, or that I should change my strategy based on one person?


I think that's pretty much the point and should be kept in mind for this ENTIRE thread as well as a good number of threads where we compare methods and results.

You cannot compare a 500 page historical novel with a formula romance or fantasy, or a serial installation, or a 5k porn short
When people say "books" here, they can mean that 500 page novel or a short story. So if someone says that they moved 10,000 books in any given time period, I first check to see what they are writing before I even compare that to my own sales and writing output.
People have different goals and expectations. I've seen them rejoice over selling 50 copies or whine because they only sold 7000
Writers have different budgets, both in time and financially.

So to argue hard for a certain method, or against Select or in favor of it is really moot. This isn't a one size fits all process.
Which is why I don't find this thread particularly depressing.

Like all threads, it contains some very interesting ideas that we can try to see if they'll work for ourselves. If not, on to the next thing. "Do what I do" only works if you have the same product and the same goals.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

Darren Wearmouth said:


> I chose to be in select so I could focus on Amazon in terms of promotion, the 'units borrowed' number also make up for about a quarter of my sales. I personally didn't believe that spreading myself thin with a debut novel was the right way to go, I weighed it up, there was nothing 'foolish' about the decision.


How is it "spreading yourself thin" to make your books available everywhere?  It's not like a Nook reader's enjoyment of a book is going to take away from a Kindle reader's enjoyment.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

Quiss said:


> I think that's pretty much the point and should be kept in mind for this ENTIRE thread as well as a good number of threads where we compare methods and results.
> 
> You cannot compare a 500 page historical novel with a formula romance or fantasy, or a serial installation, or a 5k porn short
> When people say "books" here, they can mean that 500 page novel or a short story. So if someone says that they moved 10,000 books in any given time period, I first check to see what they are writing before I even compare that to my own sales and writing output.
> ...


Very good points.


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## Darren Wearmouth (Jan 28, 2013)

Joe Vasicek said:


> How is it "spreading yourself thin" to make your books available everywhere?  It's not like a Nook reader's enjoyment of a book is going to take away from a Kindle reader's enjoyment.


I'd have lost out on a quarter of my Amazon sales and my ads wouldn't be focused on one spot. Unsurprisingly, I've found the best way to sell more books is through visibility and exposure, the way achieved this was by climbing the Amazon rankings. You don't agree, that's okay with me. I wish you good luck, sir.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Never heard of her. Why should I assume her experience is going to be like mine, or that I should change my strategy based on one person?


I think you are responding to dgaughran's post right before MichaelWallace, whom you actually quoted in your response.

Deb Geary is a member here--her username is modwitch. Just FYI--both who she is and that you misquoted.

Betsy


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## 41413 (Apr 4, 2011)

Personally, I'm just impressed this thread is still puttering along.


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## Sandra K. Williams (Jun 15, 2013)

JanThompson said:


> just chiming in that sometimes I don't buy the ebooks if I see that the same editor has edited other books that have received bad reviews on grammar though it's hard to tell if the editor was hired after the books have been reviewed.


It's really hard to judge the quality of editing without seeing the original manuscript.

If the writing is really clean, it's easier to catch nearly all the errors. (No one can reasonably claim 100% error-free results.)

If the manuscript is a mess, the editor is so busy fixing the major problems that smaller errors near the major problems get overlooked. (Literally overlooked - the eye skims over them and focuses on the bigger problem.)

Other factors to take into account: The writer is willing to pay only for a quick read-through; the writer specifies that only certain kinds of errors are fixed; the writer rejects the editor's changes; the writer revises after editing and introduces more errors.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Hey, it's only been a week and a half...


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Darren Wearmouth said:


> I'd have lost out on a quarter of my Amazon sales and my ads wouldn't be focused on one spot. Unsurprisingly, I've found the best way to sell more books is through visibility and exposure, the way achieved this was by climbing the Amazon rankings. You don't agree, that's okay with me. I wish you good luck, sir.


 Last I heard you sold a crazy high number of books, and in a very short period of time. I'd say whatever you are doing is working quite well! I've also bookmarked your podcast on how you launched your book....and thank you for sharing the details. It's great to see what is actually working in the current marketplace. I didn't realize you were in Select though, that is interesting, and that the borrows have been significant. I was planning to go everywhere on my launch, am now rethinking that.


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## David &#039;Half-Orc&#039; Dalglish (Feb 1, 2010)

modwitch said:


> Thanks for my morning laugh, folks.


But...but...but don't you know that by being in Select you are *harming* your writing career, perhaps damaging it _*forever?*_

THIS IS NO LAUGHING MATTER DEB!!!!!!1111111!1!1!111.


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## Mr. Coffee Snob (Jun 27, 2011)

David 'Half-Orc' Dalglish said:


> So if I'm following you right...you'd rather make squat in sales now under the assumption that somehow you're preparing yourself for many more sales in the future...while also simultaneously saying the future is thoroughly unpredictable due to how much change we're currently experiencing.
> 
> Let me see if I can rephrase this:
> 
> ...


Exactly. I can't for the life of me understand this "slow growth" idea that leads some to ignore good opportunites. I'd rather have fast growth, which leads to greater visibility and the potential for more readers. The slow growth concept is right up there with the idea that free books somehow harm you even when you make more sales, more money, and gain more fans.


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## MeiLinMiranda (Feb 17, 2011)

I would love fast growth. I doubled sales yearly from 2010 to 2012. This year I'll be lucky to meet 1/3rd of 2012, for reasons completely unclear to me. You bet I've upped my hustle, and it's starting to turn around but not very quickly. For some of us, the usual techniques don't work. You take the high road and I'll take the low road, and eventually I'll get to Scotland.  I gotta work with what I have--we all do.


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## Mr. Coffee Snob (Jun 27, 2011)

MeiLinMiranda said:


> I would love fast growth. I doubled sales yearly from 2010 to 2012. This year I'll be lucky to meet 1/3rd of 2012, for reasons completely unclear to me. You bet I've upped my hustle, and it's starting to turn around but not very quickly. For some of us, the usual techniques don't work. You take the high road and I'll take the low road, and eventually I'll get to Scotland.  I gotta work with what I have--we all do.


I actually haven't had fast growth (as I see it). My progress has come from adding more books to my series and running various, um, fast-growth promotions like perma-free and Bookbub. But since I'm currently making a living off my novels, I have nothing to complain about.


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## Darren Wearmouth (Jan 28, 2013)

PamelaKelley said:


> Last I heard you sold a crazy high number of books, and in a very short period of time. I'd say whatever you are doing is working quite well! I've also bookmarked your podcast on how you launched your book....and thank you for sharing the details. It's great to see what is actually working in the current marketplace. I didn't realize you were in Select though, that is interesting, and that the borrows have been significant. I was planning to go everywhere on my launch, am now rethinking that.


Thanks, I'd probably add the caveat that what worked for me, wouldn't work for everyone. But I wish you the best of luck!


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

modwitch said:


> The Betsys of the world get mad when I come out too often .


Well, since I think I'm behind, you can take a SHORT break. 



modwitch said:


> Kermit didn't kill yours. Just sayin'.


Hmmm... may have to resurrect some of those pics....


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

David 'Half-Orc' Dalglish said:


> But...but...but don't you know that by being in Select you are *harming* your writing career, perhaps damaging it _*forever?*_
> 
> THIS IS NO LAUGHING MATTER DEB!!!!!!1111111!1!1!111.


I'm not sure what you're getting by mocking me (besides the obvious, which seems remarkably childish), or why my posts are the ones that have drawn you out from inactivity. You do seem very eager to put words in my mouth, though, and criticize me for things I never said. Is this how the old-timers on KBoards respond when someone disagrees with their basic world-view?

Counterfactuals are by nature impossible to prove. However, without enrolling in Select and making my books available as widely as I can, my sales are steadily growing, each new book published is followed by increased sales of my other books, and I'm right on track for my goal of building a sustainable career.



Robert E. Keller said:


> Exactly. I can't for the life of me understand this "slow growth" idea that leads some to ignore good opportunites. I'd rather have fast growth, which leads to greater visibility and the potential for more readers. The slow growth concept is right up there with the idea that free books somehow harm you even when you make more sales, more money, and gain more fans.


Not sure how the two are lumped together; I've got four perma-free titles right now, including a novella that has been sitting in the Top 20 of Amazon's Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Space Opera subcategory for over a year. I'm a big believer in perma-free, especially as a means to gain readers in stores other than Amazon. People on these boards always write off Sony, for example, but I earn more there than I do from all the smaller Amazon stores combined (everything other than .com and .co.uk).

It's not slow growth I'm arguing for, so much as patience and a dedication to long-term strategy. How is that such a controversial thing here, when those are two of the core principles behind Amazon's phenomenal success?


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

modwitch said:


> Thanks for my morning laugh, folks.
> 
> Back to the writing cave. The Betsys of the world get mad when I come out too often .


Glad you had a laugh. I hope there's no offense if I don't really know you all that well. Guess I'm just not that plugged into the KBoards community.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Glad you had a laugh. I hope there's no offense if I don't really know you all that well. Guess I'm just not that plugged into the KBoards community.


No shame in that. While I've seen the odd post by modwich, I have no idea who Deborah Geary is, either. You can't know everybody, especially if they (like me) use a nickname for message boards rather than their real names.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I'm not sure what you're getting by mocking me (besides the obvious, which seems remarkably childish), or why my posts are the ones that have drawn you out from inactivity. You do seem very eager to put words in my mouth, though, and criticize me for things I never said. Is this how the old-timers on KBoards respond when someone disagrees with their basic world-view?
> 
> Counterfactuals are by nature impossible to prove. However, without enrolling in Select and making my books available as widely as I can, *my sales are steadily growing, each new book published is followed by increased sales of my other books*, and I'm right on track for my goal of building a sustainable career.


It is a wee bit weird, I must say. I can't recall if Dalglish specifically ever wrote a big post himself on how he "made it" as an indie author, but the bolded part above was the accepted KB standby "bible" for how to be successful for years. (Select, of course, we were divided on. It worked great for modwitch and some other people, but I didn't think that Half-Orc was all into it... Of course, I don't seem to remember his being around all that much even then, so I'm lost. I think maybe your vehemence in disagreeing with janneco up thread is what ruffled some feathers?)

Now, apparently, we market.

Whatevs.

I try basically everything that any successful person on this board recommends, and it never works out as well for me as it did for them, which leads me to believe that it's less about process and more about product, and that their products are more appealing than mine are. So, as soon as I wrap up some promised series installments for my (58 die-hard) fans, then I'm working on making more appealing products. After THAT doesn't work, maybe some of my backlist will have finally gotten enough reviews for Bookbub to take them (if Bookbub still keeps working, that is.) Russell Blake keeps talking about having a strategy. Well, I only have this: I'm not giving up. The end.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> I think maybe your vehemence in disagreeing with janneco up thread is what ruffled some feathers?)


It's possible. I really do think it's important to recognize and accept that most things in this business aren't in your control, and that there is no one true way to do anything. As much as I feel that Select is not a good long-term strategy, I do recognize that others have done well by it, and wish them continued success, just as I hope they wish me success on my path. There really is no good reason for us to turn on each other.



> Now, apparently, we market.
> 
> Whatevs.


I keep telling myself I'll get around to marketing/promoting my books when I have more of them out. I'm not against Bookbub or the other sites, but I do think it's worth pointing out that I'm having some degree of success without using them.



> Well, I only have this: I'm not giving up. The end.


That's the key ingredient right there.  Best of luck!


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

modwitch said:


> At the risk of having a conversation I swore I'd never have on KB again, I'll just say this. Select is easy to shoot at. Select authors are easy to shoot at - lots of smart people in the industry do. And because I'm a bit inconvenient to that point of view, a lot of those people try to toss me out as some kind of anomalous data point - but a good look at the charts will show you plenty of authors in Select who can reliably launch a book to their genre bestseller lists. Anyone who says they have a more solid lock on the long-term than that is just guessing. None of us knows where this ship is headed, and having loyal readers you can reliably reach is the best oar any of us can have. I built mine using Select. That doesn't mean you should, but I do raise an eyebrow at anyone who thinks my oar doesn't paddle very well and is held by an idiot .


Fair enough. I'm not going to call anyone an idiot who's following a strategy that's obviously working for them. I do know there are fans I wouldn't have right now if I'd gone with KDP Select, but I can't say how many I would have otherwise gained either. Our different paths seem to be working for each of us, so it's pretty clear that we've both got some things right, however much we may be wrong about others.


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## Mr. Coffee Snob (Jun 27, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Not sure how the two are lumped together; I've got four perma-free titles right now, including a novella that has been sitting in the Top 20 of Amazon's Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Space Opera subcategory for over a year. I'm a big believer in perma-free, especially as a means to gain readers in stores other than Amazon. People on these boards always write off Sony, for example, but I earn more there than I do from all the smaller Amazon stores combined (everything other than .com and .co.uk).
> 
> It's not slow growth I'm arguing for, so much as patience and a dedication to long-term strategy. How is that such a controversial thing here, when those are two of the core principles behind Amazon's phenomenal success?


My apologies for misinterpreting your view. Anyway, I have heard the "slow growth" argument from some who've suggested that bothering with promotions and the like is a waste of time. I certainly agree about not writing off any potential sales venues, even if you're not selling there. But I also disagree about Select. It worked well for me in the past. It's all about whatever works, of course.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> It is a wee bit weird, I must say. I can't recall if Dalglish specifically ever wrote a big post himself on how he "made it" as an indie author, but the bolded part above was the accepted KB standby "bible" for how to be successful for years. (Select, of course, we were divided on. It worked great for modwitch and some other people, but I didn't think that Half-Orc was all into it... Of course, I don't seem to remember his being around all that much even then, so I'm lost. I think maybe your vehemence in disagreeing with janneco up thread is what ruffled some feathers?)
> 
> Now, apparently, we market.
> 
> ...


Never give up. If you think it's the product...maybe it is. Not being an expert, I couldn't say. But depending on what aspect of the product needs work, it may not be all that hard to fix. If it's cosmetic, certainly not. There are great resources out there to help out with how your work is introduced to the world. 
I think you're attitude is awesome. Too many writers can't see fault in themselves. They take a "It's not me, it's the rest of the world" attitude when things don't go their way. That you can take a step back and try to see what's wrong and want to fix it, in my opinion, is the key ingredient to a recipe for success.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

justsomewriterwhowrites said:


> I think random chance (luck) is a much, _much _bigger part of this than most people want to admit. They're determined to find patterns and methods at all costs because people want control and they want things to make sense. I've just about concluded that luck is the single most significant factor in success after the basic necessity of having a good book.


*THIS.*


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

BrianDAnderson said:


> Never give up. If you think it's the product...maybe it is. Not being an expert, I couldn't say. But depending on what aspect of the product needs work, it may not be all that hard to fix. If it's cosmetic, certainly not. There are great resources out there to help out with how your work is introduced to the world.
> I think you're attitude is awesome. Too many writers can't see fault in themselves. They take a "It's not me, it's the rest of the world" attitude when things don't go their way. That you can't take a step back and try to see what's wrong and want to fix it, in my opinion, is the key ingredient to a recipe for success.


I personally don't think there's anything *wrong* with it, or I wouldn't have published it in the first place. I do, however, think it's not appealing. It's my pride that's got me replying to this at all, of course.  (Not that I don't have faults. I do. But I haven't been shoveling crappy novels onto the populace for four years either.) Anyway, it's too much to get into, but the long and the short of it is, I think, that I'm writing for the wrong audience. I like high stakes stories with a lot of violence and questionable morals and anti-heroes, and I somehow ended up writing paranormal romance. (Seriously, this sort of made sense as I was doing it. Really.) Anyway, I think I need to be writing for an audience that will appreciate what I like to write, and so I'm going to try to transition into thrillers and suspense instead. I'm really hoping it will work, and I have about seven really exciting ideas that I'm chomping at the bit to get at. Fingers crossed.


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## Alan Petersen (May 20, 2011)

justsomewriterwhowrites said:


> I think random chance (luck) is a much, _much _bigger part of this than most people want to admit. They're determined to find patterns and methods at all costs because people want control and they want things to make sense. I've just about concluded that luck is the single most significant factor in success after the basic necessity of having a good book.


It can also be said that people don't want to admit, or they want to believe that those who are very successful just got lucky or it's just by chance, nothing to do with their hard work promoting/marketing their books, especially when the other person isn't (or isn't as successful as the other person sharing their tips). They want to believe that the universe will sort everything out, so they'll just wait.

One thing that has struck me from reading this long thread those who have dug into the "it's all luck" won't change the mind of the other group, and vice versa so now the posts are just going round and round.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> I personally don't think there's anything *wrong* with it, or I wouldn't have published it in the first place. I do, however, think it's not appealing. It's my pride that's got me replying to this at all, of course.  (Not that I don't have faults. I do. But I haven't been shoveling crappy novels onto the populace for four years either.) Anyway, it's too much to get into, but the long and the short of it is, I think, that I'm writing for the wrong audience. I like high stakes stories with a lot of violence and questionable morals and anti-heroes, and I somehow ended up writing paranormal romance. (Seriously, this sort of made sense as I was doing it. Really.) Anyway, I think I need to be writing for an audience that will appreciate what I like to write, and so I'm going to try to transition into thrillers and suspense instead. I'm really hoping it will work, and I have about seven really exciting ideas that I'm chomping at the bit to get at. Fingers crossed.


Good luck. And for what it's worth, it wasn't until I started writing fantasy that I was able to get anything accomplished. I couldn't even finish writing a book until my son came to me with the concept that started the series.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Yes, luck is a major factor.

But there are a ton of lessons each of us needs to learn, and it varies by person. 

I think a huge one is learning how different artists are from the people who buy books but don't consider themselves artists or writers. For example, writers might put "originality" near the top of the list of things they appreciate in their entertainment. However, non-writers and non-critics will rarely use that term.

Actually, that might be the single biggest lesson, now that I think about it.

Stop trying to be so damn original, because crossing genre lines or choosing odd titles or having an unusual cover only confuses people who aren't also trying to be so damn original.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

modwitch said:


> Sadly, not all my readers agree with you ;-P.
> 
> I think I've posted here three times in the last 18 months . No reason at all for you to know me unless you read in the genre I write.
> 
> ...


What repeatedly gets overlooked is

a) that Select works if you write in a popular, mainstream genre, but maybe not in the less popular or less mainstream ones.
b) you need the assistance of the new gatekeepers like BookBub. If your books are not "family friendly" (and they put in that container whatever they want), forget it.

Additionally - but I'm less sure of this one - it seems to me that there has been a particular window in time when Select worked wonders. It may still be very powerful, but not as powerful as it used to be (and see a & b).

Consequently, in my case, whether I like it or not and although I'm jealous as hell, I can't use Select.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Andrew: As one of the authors who swore by Select and made his name running Select promos for all of 2012, I can tell you that the first four months of that year were heady ones indeed. A free promo was practically guaranteed to land you a ton of downloads, which were treated by the algorithms as equivalent to sales for the purposes of appearing on the pop lists, which created tremendous visibility and could result in 10K or more books sold post-free, until the algos settled down and the next wave supplanted you.

Around summer of 2012, Amazon declawed the algos, but it was still pretty good. You might see several thousand sales. Which was wonderful. But a lot of authors were confused, and working on six month old data, expecting their book to sell like lifeboats on the Titanic after a free run with no effort.

Come November, they declawed the algos still more, and it kind of became sucky. Better than a jab in the eye with a sharp stick, but we're talking hundreds, not thousands. All assuming you were in a popular genre.

As of spring, free as far as I'm concerned isn't worth the cost of being exclusive to Amazon. Perma-free combined with good marketing on a few key sites was the way to go. So I moved my whole catalog out of Select, and never looked back. The first three or four months sucked as I was building a presence on the other sites, but my sales at Amazon continued to increase, offsetting any loss of borrows, which I'd become convinced was cannibalizing my sales - who would buy a $5 book if they could wait till the top of the month and borrow it free?

Phoenix offers the most compelling argument for remaining in Select based on her experience with her romance authors. I haven't seen similar results in my genre, so while her approach obviously has merit for her authors, it ain't for me.

For me, exclusivity, and not being in forty percent of the ebook market, isn't worth any nominal financial benefit I might now see from Select, hence my abandonment of the program.  I plan to try one novel this holiday season in it, mostly just to see how the new bells and whistles impact sales, but I'm not expecting a whole lot.

Having said that, my decision isn't a philosophical one. It's purely pragmatic and sales-driven. If Select comes roaring back with some real meat, I'll be the first in line at the trough. But as it stands, I don't feel the love.

Just me.

As to your belief it's of limited use for narrow niches and less-mainstream content, you're absolutely correct. No fix I know of for that.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

blakebooks said:


> As to your belief it's of limited use for narrow niches and less-mainstream content, you're absolutely correct. No fix I know of for that.


I completely agree with your stance on Select, though, due to lack of experience, only from an intellectual viewpoint.

And about the no fix, this was about what I expected. So, the slow, gradual way doesn't seem all that bad. Main instruments being a mailing list to be able to directly communicate with your readers and your own website on your own domain.
I'm investigating advertising on sites where my intended readership might hang out and in ways to turn my few fans into my sales force.

Oh, boy, am I going to need luck&#8230;


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## Guest (Nov 11, 2013)

Mike, respectfully, this response I saw on Page 2 by you, and I wanted to reply. Forgive me if this was caught later, but I only got through half the pages on this thread so far, and would like to unplug from the boards for awhile so I can get to the business of writing. I'm a novice writer, but I would like to give some observations as a reader of many Indie authors.

Your quote:

_"I have a "contact me" spot on my website, but it's irrelevant, since my site only gets about 20 unique hits a day. My Facebook author page gets even less action. I do post news of my new releases on both, plus on my regular Facebook page, but I never see any first-few-days spike in sales of a new book."_

Mike, your Facebook page (linked in the sidebar of your writer's website) is not an author page, it is a Personal Facebook Page. I have to, more or less, send you a friend request, hope you accept it, for me to really engage with you. If you have another Facebook page that is just for the Author, I didn't see it linked from your website. Only the personal page. There's really nothing on your Facebook Page that jumps out to me that you are a fiction author, nor what type of books you write. All it says is, "Worked at Author." Almost all of the "talk" on your Facebook page is personal-related. Have a separate Author Page. As a reader, I have minimal interest in pictures of Dachshund's, though if I was a personal friend of yours, or if I were searching for a dog lover's page, that would be fine.

Not that Facebook is the end all, be all, but the most popular indie authors on these boards have some sort of presence. I saw nothing for you on Twitter, either, linking from your website.

I am writing this to you as a reader, and the authors whom I follow all have a presence, and it's easy to find that presence. I would never send a Friend Request to an author. They have Facebook pages that one can "Like" and also become part of the conversation. I believe you can also link those items into your Author Central account, including your blog updates. I guess what I'm not seeing is an open door for connecting with you, reader to author.

It's something to consider, in your efforts to turn things around. Find others who are killing it in your genre and see what they are doing for marketing. I wish you the best.


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