# What am I doing wrong?



## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

*Updates:*

December 2016
May 2017

I've been self-publishing since October 2011. Before that, I had a couple short stories and poems traditionally published. I wrote in the horror/thriller genre until 2012, when I fell in love with writing contemporary New Adult suspense and romance. I pulled all of my previous titles and started fresh.

I have 3 complete series and over 20 ebooks available:

*Becoming Natalie Trilogy*
Novellas

_Raising Dad/, $0.00.
[*]Chasing Rohan, $0.99.
[*]Becoming Natalie, $0.99.
[*]Bundle of 1-3, $2.99.
_
_

*Comes in Threes Series*
Novels

Crazy Comes in Threes, $4.99
"The Santa Pact" (a short story), $0.99

*ESX Series*
Novelettes

Amplified, $0.00.
Tempo, $0.99
Bridge, $0.99
Pitch, $0.99
Fugue, $0.99
Coda, $0.99
Bundle of 1-6, $2.99

*On the Edge Series*
Novelettes

Positive, $0.00
Upside Down, $0.99
Losing It, $0.99
Ever After, $0.99
Bundle of 1-4, $2.99

*Standalone*

Baby Brooklyn (novelette), $0.99
"Moon Prayer" (short story), $0.00
Sade on the Wall (novel), $4.99

(Click here to see all of the covers in one spot: http://elizabethbarone.net/books/)

I'm working on optimizing my catalog (updating back matter, keywords, descriptions, etc). What am I missing? What can I improve? My sales took a dive in September and this month. Before that, I was close to $100 a month. Now I can't even hit $25. This is my full-time gig, so any help is appreciated!_


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Your books are too cheap.


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## Douglas E Wright (Mar 11, 2011)

I agree. I have my short stories at .99, my novella and collections at 1.49 and my big collection at 2.99.


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## Chrisbwritin (Jan 28, 2014)

I opened Bridge on the Amazon sample page and I can tell you right off the bat, anyone who did the same as I did wouldn't buy it. And it's not the writing! It's the formatting (or lack thereof). Have you opened it before? If not, do, and you'll see what I'm seeing. A wall of text that is totally overwhelming and sentences randomly bolded. It's a hot mess and looks very much like a poorly created self-pub book. I would assume the writing was as bad as the formatting and close the page. I'm so sorry to have to tell you that, but at the same time, I'm HAPPY. Because that is the world's EASIEST thing to fix. You can format through Word so easily, I can even send you a template if you like. From what I read, the writing is good (although, for a sample, I would probably have tried to get more dialogue out front rather than to have the whole first page introspection, and then also a prologue to recap the previous story because although it's a series, it really is RIGHT in the middle of something important). 

I hope I wasn't harsh. I just didn't want to beat around the bush and waste time because it truly is an easy fix. The covers are okay, I think, although I feel like some of the titles aren't as catchy as they could be. If you want help brainstorming, maybe take each and give a short blurb and we at WC can help brainstorm? But start with the formatting. Just my .02!


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Also, you should write more novels.  

For these short stories, I'd put the lot in Select. At least there you're making more money out of each read you get.

Yeah, I know, I can't believe I'm saying this. But I think Select is great for shorter works. At this point in time, at least.


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## Guest (Oct 13, 2014)

Price could definitely be a factor.

How were your thriller/horror sales? If they were steady income, you could always republish them with a pen name. Stick them in KU, since you aren't doing anything else with them, and maybe have some extra income until you figure out how to boost your YA sales. I think sales are down overall for most of us since KU. Borrows have compensated thus far for me, but if they hadn't, I'd be very worried about the slow sales, and my husband has a good F/T job (that he hates and wants to leave).


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Chrisbwritin said:


> I opened Bridge and I can tell you right off the bat, anyone who did the same as I did wouldn't buy it. And it's not the writing! It's the formatting (or lack thereof). Have you opened it before? If not, do, and you'll see what I'm seeing. A wall of text that is totally overwhelming and sentences randomly bolded. It's a hot mess and looks very much like a poorly created self-pub book. I would assume the writing was as bad as the formatting and close the page. I'm so sorry to have to tell you that, but at the same time, I'm HAPPY. Because that is the world's EASIEST thing to fix. You can format through Word so easily, I can even send you a template if you like. From what I read, the writing is good (although, for a sample, I would probably have tried to get more dialogue out front rather than to have the whole first page introspection, and then also a prologue to recap the previous story because although it's a series, it really is RIGHT in the middle of something important).
> 
> I hope I wasn't harsh. I just didn't want to beat around the bush and waste time because it truly is an easy fix. The covers are okay, I think, although I feel like some of the titles aren't as catchy as they could be. If you want help brainstorming, maybe take each and give a short blurb and we at WC can help brainstorm? But start with the formatting. Just my .02!


+1 on the formatting.


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## Chrisbwritin (Jan 28, 2014)

And, I have to say, I think the pricing on the books is fine. As it stands, you are an unknown author wanting people to invest and take a chance on you. Since a lot of the books are novellas and novelettes, I think .99 is a good "take a chance on me" price. Asking 2.99 at this point would only hurt you. Again, just my .02!


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Chrisbwritin said:


> ... it's not the writing! It's the formatting (or lack thereof). Have you opened it before? If not, do, and you'll see what I'm seeing. A wall of text that is totally overwhelming and sentences randomly bolded.


Yes that.

Very much so. We need space and order both in our lives and in our books.


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## Cege Smith (Dec 11, 2011)

What have you been doing for promotion? You've obviously got the writing down pat.    What do you do when you take your writer's hat off and put on your marketing hat to get readers' attention? It's hard to share any thoughts when we don't know what you have/haven't done yet.


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## Chrisbwritin (Jan 28, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> Also, you should write more novels.
> 
> For these short stories, I'd put the lot in Select. At least there you're making more money out of each read you get.
> 
> Yeah, I know, I can't believe I'm saying this. But I think Select is great for shorter works. At this point in time, at least.


+1 (HARD) on the KU suggestion. DOOOO EEEET. I moved my NA serial to KU and my monthly income has tripled on those books (albeit, my self-pub income is a small part of the pie right now, it's fast becoming much more significant).


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

I think the prices are fine for the lengths of your books. I think your covers are okay, too. Definitely fix the formatting on your ESX series and your On the Edge series. Also your one short story, Moon Prayer, has next to no Look Inside feature. Email KDP and ask them to increase it. They should. They did for a couple of mine. Then I think you should put all your shorts into KU. Capitalize on the borrows!

Once you've got them all unlisted elsewhere and enrolled into Select, do a free day or two (and advertise as much as you can) to boost your ranking up high enough to kickstart the borrows. I did this with a couple of my shorts and they're now getting about a borrow a day each. 

Hope that helps!

Rue


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## RipleyKing (Mar 5, 2013)

Formatting.  

I'm also an invisible author with each review a blessing, and price isn't the issue I would worry about. Get the formatting worked out, and start with the cheap ads and work your way up.


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

ruecole said:


> Once you've got them all unlisted elsewhere and enrolled into Select, do a free day or two (and advertise as much as you can) to boost your ranking up high enough to kickstart the borrows. I did this with a couple of my shorts and they're now getting about a borrow a day each.


Agreed. Run a BKnights promo on your free days for a boost and try to get some more reviews.

You might also look at your keywords and categories. You may be able to get better placement if you target some of the smaller sub-categories.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

Oh my gosh, you have all been so helpful. Thank you!



Chrisbwritin said:


> It's a hot mess and looks very much like a poorly created self-pub book. I would assume the writing was as bad as the formatting and close the page. I'm so sorry to have to tell you that, but at the same time, I'm HAPPY. Because that is the world's EASIEST thing to fix.


Please don't be sorry! Thank you for taking a look.

I must be tired, because I totally forgot to mention in my OP that this is an issue I'm working on. (Actually, the Amazon team is looking into it for me, because I've tried several things and nothing seems to fix it.) I format in Apple Pages (on a Mac) and save as .epub, which I upload everywhere. My ebooks look fine on Kindle and iBooks/Kobo/etc, but the damn "Look Inside" on Amazon is FUBAR. I've tried uploading a .doc instead and no luck. Someone suggested Vellum, which I loved when I downloaded the trial, but it's way out of my budget. I'm hoping the Amazon team can figure it out. The person who emailed me back said they would look into the issue and have a response for me "no later than" the 14th. Fingers crossed!



cegesmith said:


> What have you been doing for promotion? You've obviously got the writing down pat.  What do you do when you take your writer's hat off and put on your marketing hat to get readers' attention? It's hard to share any thoughts when we don't know what you have/haven't done yet.


Thank you! I've tried Bookbub in the past for my novels, but didn't get in. I've done Bknights and it earned me back my $5. I've tried Goodreads a couple of times and didn't earn back my money. I have an email list and social media. Mostly I try to interact with my readers and release something new as often as possible. At the moment I am trying to get reviews for my ESX bundle. I've asked my email list and emailed a few NA review blogs. I post excerpts to Wattpad and my blog, and have a dedicated website for the ESX series (that poses as a real boy band website).



Kit Tunstall said:


> Price could definitely be a factor.
> 
> How were your thriller/horror sales? If they were steady income, you could always republish them with a pen name. Stick them in KU, since you aren't doing anything else with them, and maybe have some extra income until you figure out how to boost your YA sales. I think sales are down overall for most of us since KU. Borrows have compensated thus far for me, but if they hadn't, I'd be very worried about the slow sales, and my husband has a good F/T job (that he hates and wants to leave).


Hmn. I've tried pricing the shorter works at $1.99 each (did okay for a while, then dropped off), $2.99 (didn't move much at all, so I moved down to $0.99 with the collections at $2.99). Would $2.99 each and $4.99 for the bundles be better?

Horror/thriller sales were meh, definitely not as good as the NA stuff. I also only had a handful of single short stories available at $0.99 each.



Patty Jansen said:


> Also, you should write more novels.
> 
> For these short stories, I'd put the lot in Select. At least there you're making more money out of each read you get.
> 
> Yeah, I know, I can't believe I'm saying this. But I think Select is great for shorter works. At this point in time, at least.


I'm working on a 5-book series of novels now! Glad I'm on the right track.

I've been toying with going Select, at least with one series. I hate the idea, since I was doing better on iBooks and Kobo than I was on Amazon. (September and October have been dead across the board for me.) But money is good...

I'm releasing a collection of my old horror/thriller stories this week in KDP-S. I'm hoping that, because of the time of year, it'll do really well and I can put the money into advertising (and bills, because bills).



Annegirl said:


> Keywords might be an issue? I just typed in 'rockers' and 'boy bands' and 'boy bands romance' for example to search the kindle romance section and I can't find any of your novelletes? I tried it with the 'new and popular' and 'relevance' search options. I'm probably searching for them wrong. And your covers are well done but they don't scream boy bands or rock stars exactly. They are also a bit inconsistent photo-wise. Couple-crowd-girl-girl-couple etc.


I'll play with keywords again. "Rock and roll romance" lands me at #1 on Amazon search. "Boy band romance" is a good one.

Good call on the covers! I'll update those, too.

Thank you all. You are awesome!


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## kathrynoh (Oct 17, 2012)

Yep, formatting.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

> I must be tired, because I totally forgot to mention in my OP that this is an issue I'm working on. (Actually, the Amazon team is looking into it for me, because I've tried several things and nothing seems to fix it.) I format in Apple Pages (on a Mac) and save as .epub, which I upload everywhere. My ebooks look fine on Kindle and iBooks/Kobo/etc, but the d*mn "Look Inside" on Amazon is FUBAR. I've tried uploading a .doc instead and no luck. Someone suggested Vellum, which I loved when I downloaded the trial, but it's way out of my budget. I'm hoping the Amazon team can figure it out. The person who emailed me back said they would look into the issue and have a response for me "no later than" the 14th. Fingers crossed!


Don't wait for Amazon to fix it! Take the issue in your own hands.

Here is my quick & dirty way for formatting short stories and non-permanent publications (iow stuff that I'm not prepared to pay the formatter to do).

1. Open account at D2D
2. Upload DOC file
3. Mess with DOC file until D2D's downloadable MOBI/EPUB looks good on whatever site/device/software I'm trying to display it on. In this case the Amazon file.
4. Upload to Amazon.
5. Sell books
5a. You may or may not choose to publish the file via D2D as well. Mine are mostly published everywhere.

I don't use this method for novels and permanent works, but it's excellent for short stories or ARCs.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

You might check out the available subcategories for romance (and any other genres you publish in) and experiment with dropping your books into different ones via precise keywording. Ideally, you can get onto some of the less populated Top 100 lists and get some visibility, especially for your permafrees. Unfortunately, romance doesn't have nearly enough subcategories. Amazon should add about a hundred more. See here for the keywording info, if you're not familiar with how it works: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A200PDGPEIQX41

Good luck, Elizabeth. It really seems you're doing a great deal right. Frustrating.


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

The covers turn me off. I don't like the big-block letters -- and some of them just read as bland. They don't stand out.


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## Navigator (Jul 9, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> Don't wait for Amazon to fix it! Take the issue in your own hands.
> 
> Here is my quick & dirty way for formatting short stories and non-permanent publications (iow stuff that I'm not prepared to pay the formatter to do).
> 
> ...


+1

Epubs and Mobi files that have been formatted in D2D's free formatter always look great.


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

This is your full-time gig? How are you living on $100 a month?! Okay, never mind, none of my business.

IMO, there are a few things holding you back:

Your Formatting Issue: For formatting, I work on a Mac, I format in Word and it looks fine. Do you have Word? Instead of using spaces between paragraphs, which aren't translating into the Look Inside, can you just indent your paragraphs? That seems to work on your other books.

Short Stories: Short stories are one of the hardest things to sell, but you're spending most of your time writing short stories. For fiction, you need a book at 50,000 words to get ads with most bloggers. If you don't have ads, you don't have visibility, and you're not going to have sales. Bundling them is a good idea, but does the bundle come out to 50,000 words? If it does, then focus on marketing the bundle. Would it make sense to put them together in one full-length book, rather than a bundle of shorts? If you want to keep them as shorts, then make the first short in each set perma-free. 

I can't really tell you how to sell shorts, because I'm still working on that myself. IME, what sells, and what pays the bills, are full-length novels. But you also have two novels, and they should be selling. This is what I think is holding them back:

Covers: Your full-length novels need new covers. While the covers are fine, they don't jump out and grab you and the thumbnails aren't really doing anything. You actually have better covers on your short stories. Also, you may want to tweak the blurbs a little. Other than that, the sample pages are great, the reviews are great. I think if you update the covers and then run a promo on the full-length books, you're going to wind up making more than $100 a month. And once people buy the full-length books, that's what's also going to sell your short stories.

Anyway, that's just my opinion. Feel free to ignore me, if it doesn't work for you.


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## Abalone (Jan 31, 2014)

Formatting and covers. They're equally bad. Sorry, I tried to think of a nicer way to say it but I couldn't find the words to do so.


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

Some of the books I checked out are in Thriller, Mystery and Suspense. I don't get that from the covers or the blurbs at all. I'm wondering if the categories and keywords aren't the biggest issue, in that you aren't getting the book in front of the right readers.

I think the blurbs need work. Simplify, focus on the main character and the plot. As a reader, I like maybe three paragraphs, so I don't have to click on the Show More button.

Here's the one for Fugue:



> *Sex. Drugs. And&#8230; Boy Bands?!
> 
> This novelette is the fifth book in a series. It is strongly recommended that you start from the very beginning and pick up Amplified. You can also get the entire series in a bundle at one low price when you pick up ESX: The Complete Collection!*
> 
> ...


I put the parts I would remove in bold font. A one-line mention of the bundle, after the list of the other books, would be fine. I'm not sure if Amazon allows a link, but if so, you could do something like: "Buy the bundle for $X.XX here {link}."

The remaining needs to be reworked, and focused on this book. I think you could make it three paragraphs, keeping the same basic info but reorganized. I'm totally confused by all the names that's thrown out in the first paragraph, and the reference to stuff that happened before.

I'm not fond of the last line. I don't like questions in blurbs, but others don't mind them.

This is also listed under Sagas, as well as the Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense category, but at least it's also in Romance (and hopefully you follow the conventions for romance).

The blurb on Moon Prayer, on the other hand, is barely there at all. Other than a line that tells us what kind of story it is, and a notice about an old contest, there's only one sentence. And it's vague.

Finally, I'd look into doing something different with the titles. Most of them are like this: Chasing Rohan: Contemporary New Adult Suspense & Romance (Becoming Natalie Book 2) . The part after the semi colon isn't a subtitle, it's a category.

TLR version: Tighten blurbs; check categories and keywords; clean up titles.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

Thank you all!

And don't worry about hurting my feelings. I'm more concerned about fixing things. I'll check back later today to share what I've worked on. Thank you again!


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## SA_Soule (Sep 8, 2011)

Formatting your books to look professional is SUPER important and I agree with the other comments on this thread. I have no idea how to convert files, and truthfully, I'd rather write than waste time doing it myself.

I use this amazing online software, which is very inexpensive, yet creates professional looking eBooks and print version within seconds: http://www.bookow.com/ It is simple, quick, and so easy to use. I highly recommended it.

You can take a peek at the formatting this website does by using Amazon's "Look Inside" feature on my own novels: http://www.amazon.com/Sherry-Soule/e/B00596ANCA


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I am just a reader, a romance reader, so take this as you will. 

I am just confused when looking at your list of titles and your covers.  I wouldn't know where to start, the covers all blend into each other and its mostly shorts. A bunch of different serials started, not knowing which is finished, will they every be finished. I say serials as I see they are very short for each, so no way to have a complete story in each. So how do I know when the story, the romance HEA is done. 
I think romance readers are either not going to dip into shorts to begin with, I don't and many of my fellow readers don't, or they want to make sure a serial is finished. Many have been burned. 

I see a full book series on the list, but its only one so far, so often I wait. Because who knows when the next one comes out. 

To be honest, if I just see all that in the store, I am just going to be confused and move on. And if I looked at that formatting, I wouldn't bother at all. 

In any case, make sure you have a place where you spell out exactly what serial is what, how long they will be, which ones are connected, exactly what the reading order is, what sub genres they are. Makes it easier on the reader to figure out where to start.


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## Amber Rose (Jul 25, 2014)

Regarding the formatting: you might want to try InstaScribe.com. They are kind of like a Vellum, and they cost $25/title, BUT THEY ARE FREE WHILE IN BETA.

So give it a shot. Nothing to lose! (But sign up quick, before they come out of Beta  )


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## Mike Dennis (Apr 26, 2010)

Chrisbwritin said:


> I opened Bridge on the Amazon sample page and I can tell you right off the bat, anyone who did the same as I did wouldn't buy it. And it's not the writing! It's the formatting (or lack thereof). Have you opened it before? If not, do, and you'll see what I'm seeing. A wall of text that is totally overwhelming and sentences randomly bolded. It's a hot mess and looks very much like a poorly created self-pub book. I would assume the writing was as bad as the formatting and close the page. I'm so sorry to have to tell you that, but at the same time, I'm HAPPY. Because that is the world's EASIEST thing to fix. You can format through Word so easily, I can even send you a template if you like. From what I read, the writing is good (although, for a sample, I would probably have tried to get more dialogue out front rather than to have the whole first page introspection, and then also a prologue to recap the previous story because although it's a series, it really is RIGHT in the middle of something important).
> 
> I hope I wasn't harsh. I just didn't want to beat around the bush and waste time because it truly is an easy fix. The covers are okay, I think, although I feel like some of the titles aren't as catchy as they could be. If you want help brainstorming, maybe take each and give a short blurb and we at WC can help brainstorm? But start with the formatting. Just my .02!


Agreed.

Also, be sure to indent all your paragraphs with no space between them.


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## A Woman&#039;s Place Is In The Rebellion (Apr 28, 2011)

Elizabeth ~ I would recommend contacting Jason and Marina at Polgarus Studio. They recently did a great (and inexpensive) job formatting for me and they have the following FAQ on their website which may be relevant to your issue:

*Do you accept Pages documents?
Yes, we do! Note - Please don't send a Pages file that you have exported to a Word document. They often lose the formatting information we need. If you have used Pages to write your book, just send us the Pages file*.

I am hopeless with formatting so I always outsource it. I wouldn't wait for Amazon to get back to you because you may end up having the same issue the next time around. I also work on a Mac but use Word and haven't had any issues.

Good luck!


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

This is all great advice, even from "just" readers. You are all amazing, each and every one of you!

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by all of the things I need to work on... but I now have a very clear picture. I can't thank you all enough!

I just signed up for InstaScribe and am playing with it now. I'll keep you all posted.


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## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

elizabethbarone said:


> I've been self-publishing since October 2011. Before that, I had a couple short stories and poems traditionally published. I wrote in the horror/thriller genre until 2012, when I fell in love with writing contemporary New Adult suspense and romance. I pulled all of my previous titles and started fresh.
> 
> I have 3 complete series and over 20 ebooks available:
> 
> ...


_

Honestly, I think its a couple of things.

1. Readers have grown tired of the "You sell me a 44 page book for 99 cents of $2.99" most want a novel. They have got wise to the tactics of authors chasing the green

2. Ties in with above. Write a novel. Unless you have some crazy following, these short stories don't tend to work well.

3. Amazon is cracking down on this whole area of erotica, making them harder to be found._


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## Lyoung (Oct 21, 2013)

I randomly clicked on Tempo and was immediately confused by the blurb. I had no idea what was going on. Even though it's the second book in your series, the blurb shouldn't confuse readers who have not read the first book or are not familiar with the series. Due to the fact that there are thousands and thousands of books for me to peruse as a reader, I wouldn't bother clicking on your first book to figure out the confusing references in your blurb. I would just move on to another author. 'Tis the state of our current short-attention-span Internet age! 

For instance, what is Perpetual Smile? You can either make it more generic or clarify what Perpetual Smile is...?

What's ESX?

Also, in your blurb, you wrote "...manager is determined to keep him busy, though, and frenzied fans and starry-eyed stylists _*through*_ themselves in his way, too." Did you mean "throw"? That needs to be cleaned up, as it indicates the quality of work of your book.

As others have stated here, formatting is definitely an issue. As soon as I clicked on the preview, I took a glance at the formatting and exited the preview immediately.

Fix the above and you'll probably be a rock star yourself!


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## Chrisbwritin (Jan 28, 2014)

she-la-ti-da said:


> I think the blurbs need work. Simplify, focus on the main character and the plot. As a reader, I like maybe three paragraphs, so I don't have to click on the Show More button.
> 
> Here's the one for Fugue:
> 
> The remaining needs to be reworked, and focused on this book. I think you could make it three paragraphs, keeping the same basic info but reorganized. I'm totally confused by all the names that's thrown out in the first paragraph, and the reference to stuff that happened before.


THIS! I was trying to think of how to say it, but exactly this. Not to say that mine are perfect by any means, but check out the NA serial link on the far right of my sig (Fix You) and then the blurb for the second book in that series (you'll see it in the also boughts). I tried to give some new info, but also to recap (in one line) what happened in the first book so new readers get what the series is about and can decide to go back and get the first one. While you can assume SOME knowledge of the previous books, there can't be a wealth of information with names and things that people might not know because with each new book, you're not just hoping to get back the previous book's readers. You need to look at each blurb as an opportunity to hook NEW readers. So make sure the hook is there, or the trope is outlined and the meat of the book is in the blurb somewhere. Doesn't need to be a blow by blow of what the book is about, it's a sales tool to get people to want to read it, so cherry pick the most compelling, sellable parts. Rock star? YES. Boy band? For New Adult? I'm going to say not so much. 22 year olds want bad boys in romance (which is why rock stars and fighters do well, and across the tracks tattooed guys). The other thing is confusion, across the board. I don't know what Fugue is or how to say it, and that instantly turns me off. Strange, but true. Same with when an author has a name with a questionable pronunciation. I won't rec their books because I don't want to look stupid and say it wrong. That's a con with a title like that. And then the names of the characters in some of the blurbs are confusing. At first I thought Koty was the girl, then I thought Koty and Jett were two boys in the boy band, and then I was thinking Jett was the heroine but that's not a girl's name. I don't know what ESX is and I just stopped trying to figure it out after a minute. I would approach them by reading each one as if you're a new reader, without any knowledge of the story and see if you say "THAT makes me what to open that book and find out more."


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

Thank you for more great suggestions, Kalel, Lydia, and Chris! Thank you all, so very much.

I spent all day today working on fixing the issues you pointed out. InstaScribe worked like a charm-a very cost-effective, easy to use charm. I wish I could bake you cookies for suggesting this app. I've updated the formatting for 5 titles (the entire *Becoming Natalie* trilogy and bundle and the first *ESX* book).

I also updated some keywords and the blurbs for those same titles.

For the *ESX* and *Becoming Natalie* bundles, I created new boxed set graphics for the covers. Those should be live on Amazon soon.

I'll be updating the files, covers, blurbs, and keywords on iTunes, etc throughout this week, but I wanted to test on Amazon first.

I'll keep you all posted as I continue working on your suggestions. Thank you again!


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

Follow Patty's advice about using D2D's free formatter. If you don't have Word on your Mac, Google Open Office. They have a free suite of office programs. You can save to a Word 2007 .doc file and upload to D2D.


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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

elizabethbarone said:


> I must be tired, because I totally forgot to mention in my OP that this is an issue I'm working on. (Actually, the Amazon team is looking into it for me, because I've tried several things and nothing seems to fix it.) I format in Apple Pages (on a Mac) and save as .epub, which I upload everywhere. My ebooks look fine on Kindle and iBooks/Kobo/etc, but the d*mn "Look Inside" on Amazon is FUBAR. I've tried uploading a .doc instead and no luck. Someone suggested Vellum, which I loved when I downloaded the trial, but it's way out of my budget. I'm hoping the Amazon team can figure it out. The person who emailed me back said they would look into the issue and have a response for me "no later than" the 14th. Fingers crossed!


I write in Pages as well. The best way to get an ebook from Pages is to export to .rtf first. Don't ask me why. I highly recommend using a formatter. You can get a hand-coded ebook for around $50 that you'll never have to worry about. Uploading a .doc from the .rtf also works if you have access to Word and know how to set up your styles properly.

The covers look great. Try playing with keywords, raising prices, and putting a series or two into KU. The good news is that you've got a lot of material to play around with.


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## Lyoung (Oct 21, 2013)

elizabethbarone said:


> I'll be updating the files, covers, blurbs, and keywords on iTunes, etc throughout this week, but I wanted to test on Amazon first.
> 
> I'll keep you all posted as I continue working on your suggestions. Thank you again!


Definitely keep us updated! You have wonderful material!


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

A price change is a good experiment.
Try 99 cents for the short stories.
1.49 to 2.49 for novelettes and novellas
2.99 to 4.99 for novels


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## Jaya Jha (Feb 24, 2014)

Amber Rose said:


> Regarding the formatting: you might want to try InstaScribe.com. They are kind of like a Vellum, and they cost $25/title, BUT THEY ARE FREE WHILE IN BETA.
> 
> So give it a shot. Nothing to lose! (But sign up quick, before they come out of Beta  )


Thanks a lot for mentioning InstaScribe Amber. I am the co-founder 

Anybody who signs up in beta will get at least 3 months of free access, even if we come out of beta before that. And we are more than eager to get feedback and fix things. So, feel free to reach out folks.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

Update time!

You have all kept me very busy with your amazing suggestions. Thank you again!

During this week, I reformatted my Becoming Natalie, ESX, and On the Edge series. First I tested with one book using InstaScribe. It worked like a charm! The "Look Inside" issue is no more! So thank you, Amber Rose for suggesting it, and Jaya Jha for creating it.

I created 3D boxed sets for my bundles' covers. I did this using the advice in this thread: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,196580.0.html You can see them all on my website: http://elizabethbarone.net

I enrolled the On the Edge series (4 novelettes, 1 boxed set) in KDP-Select. I may or may not have cried a little while clicking that little checkbox. I tried so hard not to get sucked back in! But my plan is to rotate my series. After this 90-day period, I'll put in ESX.

I raised the prices of the OTE books. Brian Spangler suggested $1.49 for novelettes. Thank you. I priced the boxed set at $3.99. This is a little test balloon to see if raising the prices to that middle ground helps. (I've tried pricing them at $0.99, $1.99, and $2.99 each, with the boxed set as high as $5.99.)

I updated all of the blurbs for the OTE series, following Christine Bell's advice and format. (Seeing how yours were done was super helpful, so thank you!)

As of right now, the OTE series is in KDP limbo, waiting to be re-approved. I want to tweak keywords a bit more (I still have "suspense" in there and want to replace it with "friendship" to get it out of the Mystery/Thriller/Suspense area-oops).

I'm working on creating a rolling countdown plan for that series, potentially using Bknights to advertise but I'm not sure yet. I kind of wanted to advertise the sale for the Halloween collection I'm putting out.

Today I'm working on updating the blurbs for the ESX series and uploading the new files to Apple, BN, and Kobo.

Meanwhile, I'm almost done with the novel I've been writing this month... Right now I feel like I need two of me, haha.

I'll keep you posted as things progress. Thank you all again!


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## 555aaa (Jan 28, 2014)

Hugh Howey said:


> I write in Pages as well. The best way to get an ebook from Pages is to export to .rtf first. Don't ask me why.


Good suggestion. It works well because .rtf ("Rich Text Format") is an extremely simple, stripped down text format that dates back to the 1980s, and thus it will remove complex formatting details that can't convert to epub, which is also pretty boneheaded. It was designed for easy exchange of document formats between different word processing systems.

All the best, Elizabeth. pm me if you get stuck on the formatting.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

Almost two weeks later...

I fixed my formatting issues! I tweaked pricing. I've been playing with keywords and blurbs. I _really_ didn't want to go into KDP Select, but I moved one series in. Things are moving again, but slowly. I'm back up to what I was making earlier this year when I first went full-time (which is still considered coffee money, but $50 is $50).

I just finished writing a standalone novel and have it with beta readers. I'm working on a series of 5-8 full-length novels now.

I also just released a collection of short horror stories in KDP Select, in hopes of capitalizing on Halloween.  They were sitting in my filing cabinet, edited and sad. That's sold 1 copy and 2 borrows. _ESX: The Complete Collection_, with its shiny new 3D art, has sold 5 copies on KDP.










I'm trying to find the sweet spot for keywords. The blurbs I think are okay for now. I can't do much about the covers right this minute. I just started a part-time seasonal job to catch up on bills and to put some more money into the business.

Another question: Should I focus my budget on the new book and release it ASAP, or should I focus it on improving what I've got and hold the standalone novel back? The standalone does tie-in to the forthcoming series, but can be read as a complete story on its own. (The characters from _The Nanny with the Skull Tattoos_ appear in the South of Forever series.) It's NA with steamy scenes (previously I kept it hot but fade-to-black.)

Thank you all again. You kept me from the edge last week!


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

My vote: invest in the new book!

Hope that helps!

Rue


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## Lionel&#039;s Mom (Aug 22, 2013)

I agree, go for the gold with the new book and some attention should trickle back onto the old ones as well.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

*Two and a half months later...*

Thank you all, again, for the stellar advice!

Since October, things have changed majorly for me. December was my all-time best month in sales. I now make a decent part-time living (and so far this month, the momentum is continuing)! My new novel, _The Nanny with the Skull Tattoos_, has 14 pre-orders on Amazon, 1 on iBooks, 0 on Google Play (Kobo doesn't display pre-orders until launch day, so I have no data for that site). I created an aggressive marketing plan for the new book (TNWTST for short), and it's generating a lot of buzz.

For the older books in my catalog, I updated the covers and blurbs. I yanked titles that weren't selling so that they won't hurt my Amazon author ranking anymore. I created a Facebook group, which gets much more interaction than my author page. I have been posting offers on the page, which have led to a few sales.

I started advertising with Bknights on Fiverr and just placed an ad with Booktastik for the first time. I've been enrolling my books in Kobo's monthly promotional 35% off sale (they do the marketing for these, which rocks). Kobo is now my money maker. *dances*

Using Tim Grahl's method (http://outthinkgroup.com/news/amazon-reviews), I've built a team of early reviewers for TNWTST. It's already got 2 5-star reviews on Goodreads, 389 requests for the giveaway I'm running, and 216 adds. My reviewers are a mix of friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances, and book bloggers, and the feedback so far has been very positive and enthusiastic. I have a feeling that TNWTST is The One-the novel that is going to be my tipping point.

I've created incentives for every add that TNWTST gets on Goodreads (http://elizabethbarone.net/updated-incentives-for-the-nanny-with-the-skull-tattoos/), and posted the first 5 chapters on my blog (I sent my email list the first 6 chapters).

I landed an interview on the 16th with Paula's Soapbox, which will stream live on YouTube (https://www.facebook.com/events/1743928052499628/), and have scheduled takeovers on several bloggers' Facebook pages during the month of March.

There is probably something that I'm forgetting, but you get the gist. I can't thank you all enough! Your suggestions were extremely helpful. I'm well on my way to a full-time income.


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2015)

Elizabeth

Market for short works is 1/10th that of longer works.

I'm not sure how Kindle Unlimited changes that. Howver, we mention free books and deals and shorter works get 1/4th to 1/10th the number of downloads.


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## Claire Frank (Jul 28, 2014)

What an awesome update!! Love it!


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

Jaya Jha said:


> Thanks a lot for mentioning InstaScribe Amber. I am the co-founder
> 
> Anybody who signs up in beta will get at least 3 months of free access, even if we come out of beta before that. And we are more than eager to get feedback and fix things. So, feel free to reach out folks.


Is there an option to buy unlimited access for a higher sum, the way Vellum does it?


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## ShayneRutherford (Mar 24, 2014)

elizabethbarone said:


> *Two and a half months later...*
> 
> Thank you all, again, for the stellar advice!
> 
> ...


Congrats on all of the good stuff you've got going. And your box set looks awesome. I hope your upcoming book sells like hot cakes.


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## ruecole (Jun 13, 2012)

Yay, Elizabeth!!!

Rue


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

Thank you, Shayne and Rue! I need to update again. Things are going pretty well! Just gotta figure out how to spread the release day spike around a bit more; sales have kind of crashed.


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## henderson (Jul 14, 2014)

Elizabeth,

I read the whole thread.  Very impressive.

I will be publishing my second fantasy novella, and I found this thread very helpful.

Thanks for sharing.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

*Two Years Later...*

I see lots of folks keeping a dedicated thread around here, and thought I'd make this one mine. I think I have a pretty impressive story, if I do say so myself.

When I started off in 2011, I had _no_ idea what I was doing. I was also dealing with some tumultuous life changes; I'd lost my full-time job due to chronic illness, which I'm still trying to get under control all these years later. Thankfully, I have a supportive husband who works full-time, but money is tight and I can no longer physically handle the demands of the workforce. I _love_ writing and I've long done it for no or little money, but in 2015 I saw a huge-for-me spike in income that officially put me in part-time earnings -- $500/month -- after the release of my standalone NA contemp romance, _The Nanny with the Skull Tattoos_.

However, a few things worked against me:


TNWTST was an unconventional romance written in the POV of the hero and _only_ the hero
in summer 2015, my nice influx of sales dropped off due to the regular "summer slump"
in fall 2015, PTSD that I'd never dealt with finally caught up with me and knocked me out of commission

2016 was all about recovery: kicking my multiple traumas once and for all, getting my voice back, and getting my career back on track.

I'm proud to say that I've done all three. I'm now making $100/month again -- which is not where I'd like to be, but it's better than what I was making at the beginning of this year.

Since my original post, I've re-worked my catalog a bit. I merged the novelettes/novellas into standalones. I'd signed with a small press so was kind of obligated to focus on my South of Forever series, so the Comes in Threes series continued to get neglected. But the small press went under this year and after some drama, I got momentum going again. 2017, for me, is going to be all about closing up loops -- finishing all of my currently open series. Then, ideally, I'd like to focus on one series at a time, because juggling series is _so_ not for me (though I do like writing other things in between writing books in a series, so my plan is to just change how I'm releasing).

My catalog now looks like this, with 10 titles currently live:

_Becoming Natalie_ -- Chick Lit

*Comes in Threes Series* -- NA Romantic Suspense
_Crazy Comes in Threes_
_Trouble Comes in Threes_ (Spring 2017)
_Hope Comes in Threes_ (Spring 2017)

_The Nanny with the Skull Tattoos_ -- NA Contemporary Romance

*Not Just Any Love Series* -- Small Town Romance -- Standalones
_Just One More Minute_
_Just One More Christmas_
_Any Other Love_ (Summer 2017)
Christmas novelette starring Char/Amarie?

_Sade on the Wall_ -- YA Suspense

_Sandpaper Fidelity_ -- Literary

*South of Forever Series* -- Rockstar Romance
_Diving Into Him_ (with bonus prequel _ESX_)
_Savannah's Song_
_What Happens on Tour_
_Cruising with the Blues_ (Winter 2017)

By the end of 2017, I plan to have a catalog of 15 or 16 titles.

I'm still trying to figure out pricing. For a while, each of my novels were $2.99. I thought maybe I'd try bumping up the price by a dollar, since most books in my genre are $3.99. When I released _Just One More Minute_ in November, I launched at a $0.99 promo that did really well. The second I raised it to $3.99, sales flatlined. I might come back down to $2.99; I'm just giving it a little more time. I also just released a Christmas novelette at $0.99 starring the characters from JOMM, in the hopes of getting that $3.99 book moving again.

The SOF series is currently in KU to try to get things rolling again. I'm in the process of updating covers again to make them look more like rockstar romance; unfortunately, KDP is taking forever to update. This has happened to me before, and emailing support got it resolved, so I've done that. I imagine they're just backed up, what with the influx of Christmas novels. (See my blog post on redesigning the covers here: http://maiettaink.com/preparing-for-2017-south-of-forever-series/)

I'm getting ready to write the fourth and final SOF book, and releasing it early next year. Then I'm re-launching my Comes in Threes series, complete with new covers and a revised Book 1.

I just finished writing my business plan for 2017, which you can see here: http://maiettaink.com/preparing-for-2017-business-plan/

TLR: I'm not rolling in it, but I'm five years into this gig and on my way to a full-time income -- despite autoimmune illness and PTSD trying to keep me down.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for all of your support and advice over the years! <3


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Sounds like you're getting all your ducks nicely lined up. Wishing you the very best of luck for 2017 - good health and good sales and a nicely increasing income.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Sounds like you're getting all your ducks nicely lined up. Wishing you the very best of luck for 2017 - good health and good sales and a nicely increasing income.


Thank you so much, Pauline! I have such a good feeling about 2017.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

Good for you for being determined not to let anything get the best of you and your career. Writing when in poor health is hard--I've been out of work since Aug. 2015 for a foot injury that by now has been operated on and gotten better, but my body went on a downward slump because of it. I totally feel your statement about not being healthy enough in body to go out into the workforce. I think with writing it's a similar thing. We may sit and write, but we're using mental energy that isn't always available when your body is hurting. I'm sorry you're going through this and I hope that with time, you're able to experience better health.

However, look at how far you've come! That's amazing. I wish you well with your career and thank you for sharing your story. It's not always easy to keep going but you're doing it!


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## juliatheswede (Mar 26, 2014)

Wishing you the best of luck, Elizabeth. It's a tough business, but you seem to have the right mindset for it


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## TheLemontree (Sep 12, 2015)

Thanks for the update, and all the best for 2017!


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## D A Bale (Oct 20, 2016)

Keep at it, Elizabeth, and I'll join in following your progress in 2017.  Best of luck to you in your health and writing!


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## LilyChandler (Dec 15, 2016)

All is going to be ok


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## Queen Mab (Sep 9, 2011)

Good luck, Elizabeth!


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## SunshineOnMe (Jan 11, 2014)

Thank you for the update! I remember the Nanny...  Sooo happy for you!


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## amiblackwelder (Mar 19, 2010)

elizabethbarone said:


> *Two-year update on Page 3!*
> 
> I've been self-publishing since October 2011. Before that, I had a couple short stories and poems traditionally published. I wrote in the horror/thriller genre until 2012, when I fell in love with writing contemporary New Adult suspense and romance. I pulled all of my previous titles and started fresh.
> 
> ...


_

Wow, I'm sorry to hear that but honestly I feel good knowing I'm not alone. After reading so many success stories, I feel like the only one struggling out there.
I can suggest some promo sites that seems to help others and sometimes me GenrePulse, Fiverr, FB ads, GR ads, Zon ads. But, aside from permafree or joining Kindle Select, I'm not sure what else...

If you have a newsletter, I'd send to them.

Background:
Like you, I want into Indie publishing earlier, but in 2010. I had published on a small press before that and had shorts and poetry. I found I loved paranormal and did that from 2010-2014. 
I managed to make $500 a month in 2013, finally hitting my goal. (Which is very low compared to what many authors make), but I can live with $500 a month. Then, I had to take a break from promoting in 2013, still writing and releasing a couple novels a year in 2013, and 2014, but my profits descended every month lower and lower until now they are at $25-$50 a month.

But that's with no promos now for 3 years.

In 2015 I started a new genre which is my favorite. YA SyFy Dystopia. I've just released my first novel SIMULATION this month a few days ago after failing on Kindle Scout.

But like you, I've promoted, spending about $250 for this month in promos, and while yesterday my rank was 19,200...now it's breaking 50,000 the next day.

Today AMAZON released its emails to all those who nominated and I had a GenrePulse promo. Neither seems to help today.

What am I doing wrong too?_


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

Thank you all for the encouragement! &#128522;



amiblackwelder said:


> Wow, I'm sorry to hear that but honestly I feel good knowing I'm not alone. After reading so many success stories, I feel like the only one struggling out there.
> I can suggest some promo sites that seems to help others and sometimes me GenrePulse, Fiverr, FB ads, GR ads, Zon ads. But, aside from permafree or joining Kindle Select, I'm not sure what else...
> 
> If you have a newsletter, I'd send to them.
> ...


My mistake was genre; I was writing the books in my heart rather than writing to market, then stubbornly trying to get them to fit into existing genres. It doesn't work that way, unfortunately. I've been reading some books that have really put things into perspective for me: David Gaughran's _Let's Get Digital_ and _Let's Get Visible_, Chris Fox's _Write to Market_, and Joanna Penn's _How to Market a Book_. This hunch is validated by readers who love my books -- when they do read them -- but getting eyeballs has long been my problem.

For example, I really wanted NA to be like YA -- a gritty category with lots of genres within it. But what I was writing and what NA had become were two completely different things. So I had to really get honest with myself and face the music. I'm now focusing on writing to market (which is basically just intersecting my interests with subgenres with hungry audiences). I've also let go of my stubbornness and took a hard look at my books -- not for the NA I wanted them to be, but for the genres they actually fit into. These past few weeks have been about re-branding these books so that they're targeted appropriately. That's included new covers and some serious category/keyword research (which you can find lots of information about here in these boards and in the books I mentioned).

I noticed that _Just One More Minute_ -- which I wrote to market by examining tropes and baking them into my story from pre-writing to launch day -- sells better on its own than my other books (minus the flatlining I mentioned, which I realized probably had more to do with the 30-day cliff than my price change). Still, I changed the price back to $2.99 to see if that makes a difference; I'm tweaking cats and keywords, and don't want pricing to interfere.

Honestly, it's really a matter of experimenting. You seem to have found your genre, so maybe now it's all about tweaking your cover, blurb, and cats/keywords (see Evenstar's post: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,205816.0.html). Once those seem right -- you'll know when your organic sales improve -- you can start running ads. This is my plan. You can do all the advertising in the world, but if the book isn't categorized in the right genre, doesn't have the right cover, and the price makes people hesitate, the ads won't do any good. I was doing ads and the ROI wasn't as good as it should've been.

I'm sorry this isn't a simpler answer, but hopefully it saves you time. I've been stubborn for the past five years and wish I'd realized all this sooner!


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

I don't get an opportunity to visit Boards very often anymore, but I remember when you started this thread. It's great to hear things are getting back on track for you. Wishing you the very best of success in 2017 and beyond.


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## Mari Oliver (Feb 12, 2016)

elizabethbarone said:


> Thank you all for the encouragement! &#128522;
> 
> My mistake was genre; I was writing the books in my heart rather than writing to market, then stubbornly trying to get them to fit into existing genres. It doesn't work that way, unfortunately. I've been reading some books that have really put things into perspective for me: David Gaughran's _Let's Get Digital_ and _Let's Get Visible_, Chris Fox's _Write to Market_, and Joanna Penn's _How to Market a Book_. This hunch is validated by readers who love my books -- when they do read them -- but getting eyeballs has long been my problem.
> 
> ...


I'm experiencing a similar challenge. Visibility is difficult in the genre I'm placing my new series in, and to boot it's not contemporary. There's no category in KDP dashboard to place it under inspirational romance unless I'm missing it somehow. These books are sweet romance but in a historical setting. All of the popular books in sweet romance are contemporary and now I wonder if I made a mistake. I love these books, I want to get them out there, but I'm not expecting much. Playing with keywords has taken me some time to figure out but Evenstar's post + Nick Stephenson's book have helped tremendously. I need to get Let's Get Visible. That's the biggest challenge here. How do we compete in saturated genres with books that may not be the bread and butter of those genres? It's a tough call for sure.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2017)

Really enjoyed reading your post and also reading your business plan. By the way, I would have signed up for your newsletter (Maietta Ink newsletter coming soon) if it were available - I did not see it in your business plan either 

From your posts, I am amazed that you are not further forward, but there is no question in my mind that you will succeed and I wish you the very best.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

vlmain said:


> I don't get an opportunity to visit Boards very often anymore, but I remember when you started this thread. It's great to hear things are getting back on track for you. Wishing you the very best of success in 2017 and beyond.


Thank you!


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

Vintage Mari said:


> I'm experiencing a similar challenge. Visibility is difficult in the genre I'm placing my new series in, and to boot it's not contemporary. There's no category in KDP dashboard to place it under inspirational romance unless I'm missing it somehow. These books are sweet romance but in a historical setting. All of the popular books in sweet romance are contemporary and now I wonder if I made a mistake. I love these books, I want to get them out there, but I'm not expecting much. Playing with keywords has taken me some time to figure out but Evenstar's post + Nick Stephenson's book have helped tremendously. I need to get Let's Get Visible. That's the biggest challenge here. How do we compete in saturated genres with books that may not be the bread and butter of those genres? It's a tough call for sure.


You can get into the Inspirational sub-cat by making "inspirational" one of your keywords. See Amazon's list of keyword-driven categories here: https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A200PDGPEIQX41

I completely feel your pain. This is why I think I'll be focusing on less saturated genres (once I've closed all my open boxes). I've been doing some market research and I've got some ideas banging around in my head. Now if only I could write faster... &#128514;


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

Will Edwards said:


> Really enjoyed reading your post and also reading your business plan. By the way, I would have signed up for your newsletter (Maietta Ink newsletter coming soon) if it were available - I did not see it in your business plan either
> 
> From your posts, I am amazed that you are not further forward, but there is no question in my mind that you will succeed and I wish you the very best.


Thanks Will!

Were you looking to get Maietta Ink posts by email? I've added a widget now, so you can subscribe here: http://maiettaink.com. I also have a general newsletter for all my books (http://eepurl.com/iUQp1), and one for my South of Forever series (http://elizabethbarone.net/south-of-forever-series/).


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2017)

elizabethbarone said:


> Thanks Will!
> 
> Were you looking to get Maietta Ink posts by email? I've added a widget now, so you can subscribe here: http://maiettaink.com. I also have a general newsletter for all my books (http://eepurl.com/iUQp1), and one for my South of Forever series (http://elizabethbarone.net/south-of-forever-series/).


Subscribed!


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

Keeping this as my thread to success, I wanted to come in and update. Since my post in December, I realized that I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to write in series. I looked at my two planned series hard and asked myself whether it was even necessary to the story, or whether I was just doing it for the sake of writing a series.

I made the decision to leave my rockstar romance at three books; it's not really selling and it's in a place where it could comfortably remain forever, or I can come back eventually and write more if I choose to. I also realized that my planned trilogy actually had no more story to tell. I'd said everything I needed to say in the first -- and now only -- book, and left the characters in a happy ending with a followup Christmas short that resolved the previously open-box romance.

I'm currently writing a f/f companion to my small town m/f romance. In the meantime, I'm meticulously planning a series that will be at least three books. This time I have much more experience with structure, etc, and know to plan ahead. I've decided I won't release any of the books until I've written all three. (I really don't want to be that indecisive author who earns a rep for never finishing things.) I have some other ideas that I'm tinkering with in a notebook, but my plan is to finish the f/f and then focus on the romantic suspense trilogy.

To be honest, I'm getting super anxious because I haven't published anything since November 2016, and my sales are dwindling to about $60/month across the board. I'm reluctant to put any money into advertising at this point with nothing new on the horizon, but I'm _hoping_ to release my f/f romance this summer. I just want to be more strategic rather than publishing for the sake of publishing, but man is it hard to shut up that little gremlin in my head that says "You need to publish every three months or else death and disaster!" &#128514;

I'm not really looking for advice at this time (other than maybe how to shut those gremlins up, heh). I just wanted to thank everyone who's been following along and cheering me on. _This_ is why I love Kboards.


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## TheLemontree (Sep 12, 2015)

Glad to see you back here  Good luck for 2017!


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## BiancaSommerland (Mar 8, 2011)

elizabethbarone said:


> Keeping this as my thread to success, I wanted to come in and update. Since my post in December, I realized that I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to write in series. I looked at my two planned series hard and asked myself whether it was even necessary to the story, or whether I was just doing it for the sake of writing a series.
> 
> I made the decision to leave my rockstar romance at three books; it's not really selling and it's in a place where it could comfortably remain forever, or I can come back eventually and write more if I choose to. I also realized that my planned trilogy actually had no more story to tell. I'd said everything I needed to say in the first -- and now only -- book, and left the characters in a happy ending with a followup Christmas short that resolved the previously open-box romance.
> 
> ...


Only just seeing this, but WAY TO GO! 

Also, I'm so excited to see more FF out there. I only have one FF book, and it's a slower seller, but I love it and that's what counts. I do think the market is picking up, so you may hit a sweet spot! *fingers crossed*

If you haven't already, connect with as many authors in the genre as you can. And I mean connect. Find them in groups, become friends, and just chat. You connect with authors and readers and you learn a lot. Don't post on author's walls randomly--not saying you would, but I've face-palmed a few times when I've given this advice and then promo happens out of nowhere and it's all awkward.

The connection is mainly to show authors and readers you. Then your books. It's a tricky balance, but it's worked for me.

I wish you the best and I'll be keeping an eye out for that book!


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

TheLemontree said:


> Glad to see you back here  Good luck for 2017!


Thank you!



BiancaSommerland said:


> Only just seeing this, but WAY TO GO!
> 
> Also, I'm so excited to see more FF out there. I only have one FF book, and it's a slower seller, but I love it and that's what counts. I do think the market is picking up, so you may hit a sweet spot! *fingers crossed*


That's what I'm hoping. &#128522; More f/f is always a good thing. I figure if this book does well -- my standards aren't high lol -- I'll add those other ideas to my production schedule.



> If you haven't already, connect with as many authors in the genre as you can. And I mean connect. Find them in groups, become friends, and just chat. You connect with authors and readers and you learn a lot. Don't post on author's walls randomly--not saying you would, but I've face-palmed a few times when I've given this advice and then promo happens out of nowhere and it's all awkward.
> 
> The connection is mainly to show authors and readers you. Then your books. It's a tricky balance, but it's worked for me.


Agreed. I've gotten way too many "BUY MY BOOK!!!!" DMs. Just when I think no one does this anymore, wham! Another one.

I'm loving the community on Twitter so far. I hadn't even thought to check Facebook groups (then again, I'm not a huge FB fan, so I rarely think to check groups in general).



> I wish you the best and I'll be keeping an eye out for that book!


Thank you!


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## BiancaSommerland (Mar 8, 2011)

elizabethbarone said:


> Thank you!
> 
> That's what I'm hoping. &#128522; More f/f is always a good thing. I figure if this book does well -- my standards aren't high lol -- I'll add those other ideas to my production schedule.
> 
> ...


I'm pretty new to twitter, so still trying to connect with other authors. I ended up connecting to a lot of political people and everyone who does musicals! lol

To clarify, I started a twitter account a long time ago, but never did anything with it. Now I am and...well, I get alerts from the locals police and know what's happening in Germany!

But book wise? Nope. Lost.

FB I've focused on, and it can be great. But between the two there's a learning curve. Hit me up on FB. You'll see how weird I am.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

BiancaSommerland said:


> I'm pretty new to twitter, so still trying to connect with other authors. I ended up connecting to a lot of political people and everyone who does musicals! lol
> 
> To clarify, I started a twitter account a long time ago, but never did anything with it. Now I am and...well, I get alerts from the locals police and know what's happening in Germany!
> 
> ...


Ha, see, I'm the opposite. Love Twitter. I've basically figured it out (it's really more for networking). FB? I'm always struggling, plus it's not my favorite to begin with.

Unrelated, but I really love your RR series covers. &#128525;


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## BiancaSommerland (Mar 8, 2011)

elizabethbarone said:


> Ha, see, I'm the opposite. Love Twitter. I've basically figured it out (it's really more for networking). FB? I'm always struggling, plus it's not my favorite to begin with.
> 
> Unrelated, but I really love your RR series covers. &#128525;


Yo, if you've got tips, hit me up! I'm lost on twitter. Thought I've managed to piss off random famous reporters, which was weird! lol

If you need help on FB, I'm all over that. Also, don't take my advice. I'm a total 'What not to do' by most standards.


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## PJ_Cherubino (Oct 23, 2015)

elizabethbarone said:


> Thank you all!
> 
> And don't worry about hurting my feelings. I'm more concerned about fixing things. I'll check back later today to share what I've worked on. Thank you again!


This. So this. You are on the right path. Good to hear from you, fellow traveler.

I am still a prawn, and learning to take advice, when to remain silent and went to speak up, how to address that advice if at all: these were all things I needed to learn in order to improve. This is how we learn. You're on the right track.

Some of the people responding to your posts have sold A LOT of books, so they know what it is they're talking about.

This is one of those gold mine threads.


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## Joshua Pantalleresco (Sep 5, 2016)

BiancaSommerland said:


> Yo, if you've got tips, hit me up! I'm lost on twitter. Thought I've managed to p*ss off random famous reporters, which was weird! lol
> 
> If you need help on FB, I'm all over that. Also, don't take my advice. I'm a total 'What not to do' by most standards.


I've gotten more podcasts through twitter than anywhere else. Great networking tool. This is an awesome thread. At some point, would love you to do a podcast sometime.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

BiancaSommerland said:


> Yo, if you've got tips, hit me up! I'm lost on twitter. Thought I've managed to p*ss off random famous reporters, which was weird! lol
> 
> If you need help on FB, I'm all over that. Also, don't take my advice. I'm a total 'What not to do' by most standards.


I'm in the process of reorganizing my social media. Initially, I stubbornly thought I could keep the business and personal mixed in, but it got tricky. I'm currently culling my Twitter feed to keep it more book-centric, and I finally caved and set up a business-only FB account. I might set up a personal Twitter account, but I think I have more than enough to manage at this point.

For Twitter, I look for and follow authors writing in the same genre. I don't really think it's a place to find readers, though you can definitely find and connect with a lot of book bloggers there. I participate in hashtags like #TeaserTuesday and #1linewed. #TeaserTuesday is pretty simple; you just share a teaser every Tuesday and use the hashtag. #1linewed has a weekly theme and a no buy links rule. @RWAKissofDeath posts the next week's theme ahead of time, so you can schedule your #1linewed if you want to. I usually try and find teasers and lines that I like on those days, and retweet them here and there.

Twitter's more of a conversation place than a promo space, though I do mix some in. I usually share word count updates, writerly things, and blog posts. I try to keep it organic, though I could probably put more effort into it and beef up my followers.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

PJ_Cherubino said:


> This. So this. You are on the right path. Good to hear from you, fellow traveler.
> 
> I am still a prawn, and learning to take advice, when to remain silent and went to speak up, how to address that advice if at all: these were all things I needed to learn in order to improve. This is how we learn. You're on the right track.
> 
> ...


I'm so glad to hear that. The advice I've gotten here has been so helpful, so I'm pleased that it can help others.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Well I missed this thread over the last two years, but I wanted to say after reading it all you don't have any formatting issues, that's for sure.  The insides that I looked at look fantastic.  Hope you find your groove and keep it moving.  Best of luck.


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## Elizabeth Barone (May 6, 2013)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Well I missed this thread over the last two years, but I wanted to say after reading it all you don't have any formatting issues, that's for sure. The insides that I looked at look fantastic. Hope you find your groove and keep it moving. Best of luck.


Thanks to the magic of Vellum, my formatting woes are over!


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