# DELETED BECAUSE OF TOS CHANGE



## 71089 (Jul 12, 2013)

DELETED BECAUSE OF TOS CHANGE


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## Faye Hunter (Jun 5, 2013)

Congrats! Thanks for sharing.


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## The 13th Doctor (May 31, 2012)

Bookmarked this. Very helpful advice, thanks Clarissa!


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## Joe_Nobody (Oct 23, 2012)

Very nice.

Here's what I think is the most important point of your post:

You work hard at it. It doesn't matter if one or two of your methods has or hasn't proven beneficial to others - you work hard at both writing and promotion and you run the publishing side as a business.

Keep up the great work and I wish nothing but the best.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

Lots of useful info here. Congrats and thanks for sharing.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

All of that comes from that hard work and effort poured out into one word, success!  Congratulations for what you accomplished.

BM


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Thank you for sharing this, Clarissa. I'm in awe of the work you do!


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## Deena Ward (Jun 20, 2013)

Good for you, Clarissa. You're a serious go-getter -- and you definitely got.  

It's generous of you to post your numbers, too. Congrats!


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## Scottish Lass (Oct 10, 2013)

Thanks for sharing - lots of useful info.

And thanks for the slot on your Blog earlier this month


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## 71089 (Jul 12, 2013)

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## AriadneW (Feb 16, 2013)

That's so awesome Clarissa! Congratulations


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

Loved this post, thank you! Congrats on the sales


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

Awesome information. Looks like I should make my serials shorter. My first was eight 10-13k books long and my second looks like it will be about the same length. Shorter might be better for me because I bore easily and have a million ideas. 

There is so much good advice here. Thank you.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Excellent, all-encompassing post! Very good! Sending around to my non-kboards author peeps now.


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## Writer1000 (Jul 28, 2013)

Congrats, Clarissa! Thanks for sharing.


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## kdarden (Aug 23, 2012)

Appreciated - good stuff. And congrats BIG TIME !!


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## Guest (Dec 19, 2013)

Very good, Thanks!


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## AmberDa1 (Jul 23, 2012)

Good post, Clarissa and continued success to you!


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

How is this thread not called "Clarissa Explains It All?" Seriously. Missed a bet there!

Thanks for the great and informative post and congrats! That's awesome.


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## 48306 (Jul 6, 2011)

GREAT all-encompassing post, Clarissa! Super congrats on your sales. That's wonderful.
I so need to get my books on Google Play. The thought of managing one more on-line site....argh. It'll be my 2014 resolution.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

Great post. Some really useful information here! Thanks.


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## KerryT2012 (Dec 18, 2012)

Which book or boxed set sells the best for you?Or are the figures acrross all titles?


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## Island Lady (Dec 1, 2013)

Thank you for sharing this Clarissa, your post is excellent.


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## 71089 (Jul 12, 2013)

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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

Clarissa,

I was looking back over your stats while I had a chance. You keep turning over new books like that and in about another year, your numbers may actually go through the roof!

Continue working as you have because it is working and you are kickin butt. I like to hear about things such as this.

BM


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## Zelah Meyer (Jun 15, 2011)

Congratulations on your sales & thanks for sharing your data (I love stats!)


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## Jennifer Lewis (Dec 12, 2013)

This is great info and I like your nice simple spreadsheet. Thanks for sharing!


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## Gerald Hartenhoff (Jun 19, 2010)

Thanks Clarissa.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

ClarissaWild said:


> you will probably sell more and make more money with serials at 10-13k for 0.99,


I had my serial episodes at $0.99 and was selling twice as many copies. But I raised the price to $2.99 and made twice as much money. I think I need to shift a few things. I've been stuck in Select this whole time, and I'm finally getting out. Putting my books in other vendors and having perma frees will probably help a lot. I think I also have to really look more closely at the market and write what people are buying. I keep thinking I'm going to be "creative" and write something "original," but that doesn't translate to dollars. There are just subgenres that are more popular: billionaires, werewolves, bbw, new adult, etc.

Shorter serials will let me cycle through the more popular concepts to see what works for me. I do want to stay with paranormal, but I don't know if it REALLY matters if I do contemporary _and_ paranormal.

I like your pricing structure where you price the first one or two after free at .99 and then raise the price toward the end, making the bundle a total of your actual prices. My bundle is really discounted from the actual price of each episode. Your way makes a lot of sense.

I just appreciate this advice so much. It saves so much time since I don't have to do all the trial and error myself. With a two year old in the house it's hard enough to find the time to write and publish at all. I really want to take this to the next level where I'm making an actual living off my writing. If I do a few tweaks and listen to awesome advice like yours, I think it's within my grasp. Time to get organized!


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## pwtucker (Feb 12, 2011)

Wow Clarissa, this is a fantastic post. Almost overwhelming! How do you manage to juggle all those different facets of the publishing business AND find time to write? 

I'm currently launching my own serials and seeing very slow success - though I'm only doing about half of all the different things you're doing. Therein no doubt lies part of the problem! I'm writing my serials at 20k each, which takes me about 2 weeks to write, edit, create the cover, and then publish. Since I've already got the first 2 installments in each serial at 20k, I probably can't reduce now, but my next serial will definitely be shorter!

A couple of questions if you don't mind:

Your sales exploded in September, going from $315 to $2300. Did you do anything that month other than the free promotion/price match, or was this just the snowball effect? (EDIT: Ah! Just reread and saw the Select Still Works portion!)

How do you start a street team? What is a street team? Why are they out on the street?

How much time do you put into your promotions/business side of publishing each day?

What freebie rank do your books hang out in? Do they tend to hover around the same spot, or need constant promos? 

Thanks so much for this inspiring post!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Fantastic growth, Clarissa!  Congratulations, and thanks for sharing your strategies!


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## Cege Smith (Dec 11, 2011)

Bookmarked. This is awesome- I plan to go over with a fine tooth comb.  Thank you so much, Clarissa!!


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## maggiejamesfiction (Oct 28, 2013)

Thanks, Clarissa, that's really helpful. You are to be congratulated on your hard work and success. Long may it continue!


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## LauraHault (Dec 16, 2013)

This is possibly one of the most helpful things I've read. Thank you!


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## 71089 (Jul 12, 2013)

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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

Thanks for sharing! I think I need to start up this street team business.


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## AgnesWebb (Jan 13, 2013)

Thank you for sharing! This is so helpful.


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

Thanks for sharing! What a great post. I'm writing a new series, now I'm going to think seriously about turning it into a serial instead. I bookmarked the thread so I can come back.


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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

ClarissaWild said:


> I wrote my 26.5 k serial (Blissful vol. 3) within 11 days. I also just wrote a short story of 9900 words. Started writing monday evening, finished it last night. Uploaded it today. I think that was the biggest sprint I ever made.


Do you run your MSS through pro editors and/or proofreaders before you publish?



ClarissaWild said:


> - I create my own covers, which means less expenses.
> - Elle Casey is right; covers are the bomb, your blurb needs to be awesome, too. The rest will do. You need to lure people in first, so a cover says it all.
> - I use a starting price of 0.00, then it goes up to 0.99. The last 1 or 2 are 2.99. I only have serials of 3 or 4 books.
> - I write books between 10 k and 18 k. Serials sell well, especially if you have a 0.00 entry book.


That's cool that you create your own covers. I'm such a scaredy cat. Maybe I should try and just let it sink/swim.

When you write 10K-18K that's the size of a short story novelette (novellas start at 18K) but you said that you have serials of 3-4 books, meaning your bundle is 30K-72K. That's a big word count range. Does that mean, I'm guessing, that maybe if each book is longer (18K) then you have fewer books in the bundle so that you can keep a reasonably sized bundle i.e. the size of a full-length novel between 54K-72K?

TQ!

Edited: I just read another KB thread that says that 8K is a novelette. So just want to update my post here. TQ.


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## J.D.W. (Nov 10, 2008)

Clarissa--you've got enough energy for ten people!  Congratulations--you deserve all your hard-earned success.


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## heidi_g (Nov 14, 2013)

Clarissa, Congratulations on being so productive and having such success with it. 

Also THANK YOU for putting together this great post! Have definitely bookmarked it!


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## 71089 (Jul 12, 2013)

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## Jan Thompson (May 25, 2013)

ClarissaWild said:


> If you had read the complete post, you'd seen I haven't hired an editor because of lack of funds. I will be doing it for larger works from now on (that last short story wasn't one of them - I needed to get it out asap, because of the dec. 20th full stop on uploads at B&N & iTunes).
> 
> I just price them by size, not the amount of books in the bundle. And yes, I call everything books, regardless of size. I know it's not a book, but it makes it easier to type rather than having to decipher each into novelettes/novellas/short stories w/e.
> 
> ...


Cool! Thanks, Clarissa.

Yes, I meant your latest short story going through an editor. I was wondering if you have an editor you can call on a short notice whom you can just shoot the MSS to who can edit quickly and get back to you in hours. Sorry I should have re-read your OP. There were many posts/replies from lots of people in the thread so by the time I got to the "Reply" button all the posts ran together and I didn't remember you had said that. Sorry! 

I like your bundle prices and I think they reflect what I've been seeing. E.g. 72K for $5.99 (or even $6.99 for some genres), and 40K for $3.99 (or $4.99 in some genres).


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## Sally C (Mar 31, 2011)

REally cool stats, Clarissa, thanks for sharing!


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## Dee Ernst (Jan 10, 2011)

Great info.  Congrats to you!


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## Basement Cat (Dec 12, 2013)

Clarissa, thank you so much for your incredibly generous sharing. I hope your success continues to soar


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## JamieFuchs (Dec 22, 2013)

Clarissa, I've started adding links to all of my other books because of this post. However, I only just released my fourth book, and it's already becoming quite time consuming to update all of my books, then republish everywhere. I can't imagine doing this when I have 30 stories out.

How do you do it, quickly?


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## Starstruck (Nov 1, 2013)

Bookmarked!  Thanks so much for all this super helpful advice and congrats on all your success!


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## 54706 (Dec 19, 2011)

Music to my eyeballs!!!  Congrats!!


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## chrissponias (Sep 22, 2013)

Congratulations! I’m impressed with your work and your results.


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## 71089 (Jul 12, 2013)

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## Hugh Howey (Feb 11, 2012)

Great advice. Congrats on your success!


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## Kitty French (Dec 3, 2012)

Congrats Clarissa, way to go! Super impressive stuff and so much info. Thank you for sharing!


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## a_g (Aug 9, 2013)

Amazing and impressive. Grats on your success.


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## JamieFuchs (Dec 22, 2013)

ClarissaWild said:


> I just have 1 list I update, featuring all my books. Then I copy paste the list into all my books
> 
> I use smarturl to create the links: http://smarturl.it/
> 
> ...


That's what I did, what software are you using?

My process probably adds three more steps because I use google docs though, gotta download it then upload it to the web to convert to a doc file, then download again.


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## 71089 (Jul 12, 2013)

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## Joseph Turkot (Nov 9, 2012)

It's overwhelming how hard you've worked. Great job. Inspirational to me. This is a valuable thread of information.


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## Redacted1111 (Oct 26, 2013)

I really have to say, I admire how organized you are. Your level of organization in the administrative aspects of self publishing inspires me to get my act together. (It's also a little intimidating, lol.) As an aside, I've had problems getting clean epubs from calibre. Does that happen often or could it have just been a fluke? I think I'll try it again because having to depend Shashwords to convert my epubs is a pain in the behind.


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## 71089 (Jul 12, 2013)

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## 71089 (Jul 12, 2013)

DELETED BECAUSE OF TOS CHANGE


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## JamieFuchs (Dec 22, 2013)

ClarissaWild said:


> And holy [crap], I just had another milestone. One of my books, Blissful vol. 2 sits at 7400 paid store with a 2.99 price!!!!    I've never been this low (or is it high?) in the store with a 2.99 book   Last time was with a 0.99 book!
> 
> I think I'm about to faint.
> 
> I love Christmas!!


Congrats! I can't wait for that day. I can see it coming because I'm almost right on track with you! I do things just a touch differently, but most of our strategies are the same (plus I borrowed a couple ideas from you )

On Christmas day I gave away over 270 free copies of my stories and so far I've made about $40 in royalties. I have four stories out and I've been publishing for just over a month now. I really want to quit my job and do this, but I know that's not the smartest way to go about things! xD I'll wait until I'm bringing in about $1000/month, then I could afford to do that


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## LAwriter (Dec 23, 2013)

Omg this wast the most awesome, informative, interesting post I've read on Kboards so far! (I'm new so I'm still reading! haha) 

Thank you SO much Clarissa!

I actually was compelled to send you an email to your outlook address. So please read it and get back to me whenever you have the time, I'd really appreciate it! Thanks!


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