# Great article: Kris Rusch's Things Indie Writers Learned in 2014



## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

Kris Rusch just published a blot post from the perspective of indie authors that I feel is an amazing read on the state of the industry and an incredible follow-up to her previous excellent post on what publishers learned in 2014. I think it is really worth a read for any indie author:

Things Indie Writers Learned in 2014http://kriswrites.com/2014/12/23/business-musings-things-indie-writers-learned-in-2014/

I posted a comment with my own thoughts.

Kris:

This article is all kinds of awesome. So much truth.

I think you nail it -- indie publishing provides enormous potential for mid-list indie authors to make a living income off their writing if they are dedicated, persistent and productive. You don't need to be a famous best-seller to do well.

I always thought we were going to see the "big collapse" in indie authors -- it was inevitable simply because we have seen way too many budding authors rush into the field.

We have seen this over and over again in all forms of media: the blogging boom, the YouTube boom, the podcast boom, the indie music boom, the tech startup boom(s), video games, repeated booms in comic books...I had a front row seat for both the collectible card game boom and the RPG indie boom after Wizards of the Coast posted the OGL (Open Gaming License) which soon led to the "flood of crap." Everyone rushes in because it appears to be easy money. There is a glut of product, some excellent, a lot average, some terrible. The market collapses. When it turns out to be actual work to make money creating something, lots of people -- even people with enormous talent but a lack of confidence and persistence -- give up and move on. The people who stick to it pick up the pieces and slowly, methodically and quietly build nice businesses.

(I am finally going to quit procrastinating and hit the publish button soon with my Outlaw Galaxy books that have been folder-warming for years. But I think my ambitions are modest and reasonable -- honestly, if I can write a book every month or two -- 1,500 words a day, 1 chapter is 1 45,000 word book a month -- sell 1,000-2,000 copies a month, I can do pretty well for myself because I live in an area where the cost of living is low.

And the thing is, if your stories are good, ANY time is a good time to publish...because if your work is good, you will find an audience, regardless of what the trends or the industry is doing at the moment.


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## Sever Bronny (May 13, 2013)

That was a wallop of a read, and I agree with the premise.  I read Russell's post earlier too. The landscape is changing, and rapidly. We simply have to evolve with the market and take the work very seriously--all aspects of it. The wonderful advantage we have is we are responsible for our fate--it's not a publishing company, nor an algorithm, it's how well we adapt. We're able to stay current by learning from each other and sharing that information.

It's an exciting time to be an author, a really exciting time. Tougher than ever as an indie, but nothing is out of reach


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Thanks for posting it, Bill. It's a really great read.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Lots of correct lessons there, but I don't think her 'gaming the system' and the gaming the system that's actually happening are the same thing.

Yes, you can't 'cheatcode' Amazon anymore into tons of money like in 2011, but you can flat out lie cheat and steal and make money like whoa and Amazon won't do anything until customers complain and punch you in the throat. Gaming the system works so hard it's not funny and nothing's really done about it.

She's right about the No One Loves You chain though. It's a hard lesson few writers are willing to acknowledge.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

But no, really she was right int he first paragraph. The real thing learned was 'nothing'.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I learned by reading that blog that the 50,000+ copies I've sold at .99 means I'm failing. Whew. I was so confused by these huge checks I've been getting that I thought I was succeeding. I'm glad KKR could set me straight


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2014)

Interesting, especially for the Grantville Gazette article that she references about all the infighting in Science Fiction. I'm confused, though-what's the thing that made her decide not to attend any cons in 2015? There are so many wars in SF fandom these days that I've long since given up trying to keep track of them all.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

It's a horrific article.  But I knew that folks here would just love it.  *shake head*  Guys, QUIT MAKING SELF=PUBLISH GURUS OUT OF PEOPLE WHO DON'T SELL.  I don't go for health advice to doctors who kill all their patients!

My response:

So you're saying that you sell 50k books at $4.99?

Look, the reason to sell 50k books at $.99 isn't the $17,500 you get on those book. It's because if your books are good, you then sell 30,000 of the next book in the series at $3.99 and make $83,790. And the next book you sell 25,500 and make $89,000.

Suddenly, instead of limping along on a few books per series per year and pretending that you're a professional, you're actually a real writer.

Congrats. You're now an indie midlister instead of an indie bottom-of-the-barreler.

But doing this means that you risk both real success and real failure. You find out whether your books are worth $3.99 or $4.99 to readers because they've been able to sample you at $.99.

I have free books. I have $.99 books. My two bestsellers last month? They cost $5.99 and up.

But you keep your head in the sand, hon. Selling books is scary. It's much easier to continue to fail and give it some other name than to risk success that means you have to keep on succeeding.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Joe Vasicek said:


> Interesting, especially for the Grantville Gazette article that she references about all the infighting in Science Fiction. I'm confused, though--what's the thing that made her decide not to attend any cons in 2015? There are so many wars in SF fandom these days that I've long since given up trying to keep track of them all.


SF is always the site of tons of little wars. Especially considering how freaking toxic a lot of the old heads and traditionalists are on issues of... anything ever.


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## ThomasDiehl (Aug 23, 2014)

ʬ said:


> It's a horrific article. But I knew that folks here would just love it. *shake head* Guys, QUIT MAKING SELF=PUBLISH GURUS OUT OF PEOPLE WHO DON'T SELL. I don't go for health advice to doctors who kill all their patients!


It does work, though, doesn't it? I mean, for them.

Those are people who go the "author as a brand" route to such a point where it doesn't matter what they write anymore. They don't sell books, they sell their reputation. And in that regard, Rusch and DWS have achieved absolute mastery.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

ʬ said:


> It's a horrific article. But I knew that folks here would just love it. *shake head* Guys, QUIT MAKING SELF-PUBLISH GURUS OUT OF PEOPLE WHO DON'T SELL. I don't go for health advice to doctors who kill all their patients!


Aw, man, is this going to be another KKR/DWS thread hamstrung by this stuff? Have you seen their latest financials? Do you know for a fact that they're not selling? Does anyone other than them know for sure? Why do you care so much about their careers that you actively discourage everyone else from reading their blogs?

We should be reading everything posted about writing and publishing and sifting through the good and the bad and making our own choices. Dismissing an individual here or there is counter-productive.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

I'm fine with people coming into the thread and giving reasons why they think DWS and KKR might be wrong with their publishing advice, critiquing their articles and business strategies.  After all, they put themselves out there giving workshops and charging good money to teach this stuff--so yeah, they can expect to come under scrutiny for it.

As to where I stand, I'm divided.  On the one hand, I really really enjoy their blogs and I've been reading DWS's writing in public and just loving how he chugs along day after day after day.  A lot of his craft tips are things that I use and find worthy...

That being said, the way they go about actually SELLING the work is not a strategy that makes much sense to me.  I don't think it makes sense at all to simply write anything you want without regard to hot genres, markets, what makes money right now and what doesn't.  They scoff at "gaming the algo's" and trying to make your book fit certain keywords and stuff that they say doesn't work.

Actually, I know for a fact that being aware of the algo's and keywords and what's hot right now, does work.  It made me an awful lot of money over the last few years.  And it seems from looking at their rankings and seeing where they choose to put their actual writing efforts in terms of genre and price and so forth--that they're pretty far off the mark on actually selling work in the current market.

So I find them to be a very mixed bag.  Still, I think if you're a smart indie, you can absolutely use them for what they advocate that works: namely, to write fast and write clean and keep at it.  To do most of it yourself, treat it like a business, and have fun doing it.

Don't listen to them about writing to markets, pricing, or anything to do with the actual current business side of e-publishing, especially as it pertains to Amazon and strategies to succeed there.

I still enjoy their articles and I like what KKR said in this one.

Oh, btw, they also talk a lot about how people who operate like I do won't last in this business because we depend on gaming the system to succeed.  That's total crap, imo.  People like me do EVERYTHING they do AND we also respond quickly to the marketplace and continue to do so as it changes.  We don't simply try and milk one strategy and then throw up our hands when things change and it stops working.


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## Chris Fox (Oct 3, 2014)

My take away from the article was that things will get harder in 2015. Maybe the author's experiences with keywords, algos and 99 cent pricing differs from some Kboards users but that underlying fact still rings true. There are more authors pumping out more books, and the pace of new eReaders has slowed. I still think it's the best time to be an indie publisher. If you write high quality books and find an audience the sky is the limit.


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## NoBlackHats (Oct 17, 2012)

Jim Johnson said:


> We should be reading everything posted about writing and publishing and sifting through the good and the bad and making our own choices.


I agree that we should read varying viewpoints and then decide and filter for ourselves (like reading news from many sources to find out what's really going on in the world). I think the authors that will have an edge are those who are smart to see trends and respond to them, and make the effort to do what is best for THEIR business. Hopefully, most authors can use the success and background of the person opining as one of the factors they use to decide whether the opinions are based on knowledge, or just the desire to keep their own namefame alive.


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## Sever Bronny (May 13, 2013)

And the wonderful thing is we don't owe anyone a certain route to success. This is open source learning here--contribute what you like. We get to choose our path from the entire knowledge database of indie publishing, and that inevitably includes the controversial. No one should be squelched from voicing their opinion, especially when they mean well.

We can call anything "gaming the system". Optimizing your keywords? That can be framed as gaming the system. Getting a paid AD in the NYT to boost your sales? That can be framed as gaming the system. Paying to have a killer cover? Even THAT can be framed as gaming the system. But it's what the big guns do--publishing houses, that is. That's their bread and butter.

Truth is, no matter WHAT system is in place, all of us will try to optimize our product within its framework. It will always be that way.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

The article and some of the response is the difference between 'learned' and 'were taught'.

I was taught calculus. I never learned it.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

I read the article, and failed to see where it provided value. It was pretty much saying "this business is hard, so you need to be professional, and lots of indies are quitting." Really? These are new points? I saw nothing about strategies for making things easier. I did see the same old advice about pricing high and forgetting about loss leaders. Two things that would be absolute suicide in my genre, although might work for others.


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## RBK (Nov 28, 2014)

Great summary of the year.

Take what works for you and leave what doesn't behind. That's what Kris and Dean have always advocated, and it's what's worked for me over the last few years.

I for one am delighted to see Kris blogging about the business again.



anniejocoby said:


> I did see the same old advice about pricing high and forgetting about loss leaders.


Just to clarify, Kris nor Dean aren't against loss leaders. They both have full chapters on how they use loss leaders. They just don't use _permanent_ loss leaders, instead reducing the price of the first book whenever a new book in the series is available, or for a special promotion.

Not saying that's the right or the wrong way, just that it's _a_ way.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

anniejocoby said:


> I read the article, and failed to see where it provided value. It was pretty much saying "this business is hard, so you need to be professional, and lots of indies are quitting." Really? These are new points? I saw nothing about strategies for making things easier. I did see the same old advice about pricing high and forgetting about loss leaders. Two things that would be absolute suicide in my genre, although might work for others.


Good points. The thing that DWS hammers home in a major way, and that I happen to agree with, is how much you can accomplish if you can learn to work fast and write clean. When you're able to write 20k words of publishable material per week, you can start to put out tremendous amounts of stuff in a short timeframe.

Now, we're we diverge is that I use that amount of material to write a) books in genres and niches that have potential to break out and be hits b) serials because they're proving to sell. I also price with loss leaders, an occasional freebie and I do box sets where large pieces of my material are available for 99 cents.

These are all strategies that DWS advises strongly against doing. His methodology is to write what you like, be unique, and put out lots of stuff at high prices because your work has value and if you put out enough of it, you'll make money over time.

The thing is, I've made more money in about 3 years than someone using his system will probably make in 20 years of writing. So even if I've "gamed the system" or my following trends is going to fail at some point, I already earned more than someone using the "throw a bunch of random stuff against the wall and see what sticks" methodology is likely to earn in perhaps their entire careers.

I'm not completely knocking it, if that's what you're after. But I'm just trying to point out the logical fallacy in DWS's arguments. He's teaching and blogging for writers who want to be professionals and make a living at this game. If you want to make a living, a good living, then simply writing anything you want and lots of it is not as efficient as studying the current trends and then writing to them.

In the traditional days, following trends was a waste of time because of the long gap between writing a book and getting to market.

Nowadays, an indie like me can spot a trend and actually have a book out in a month or less. Easy. I've done it, I know it works.

If I'd listened to DWS and modeled my career after his, I would've certainly missed out on the biggest opportunities of my life and writing career.

However, I do listen to him when it comes to productivity, and I think he's unique in how he approaches and discusses it, and for that reason--I will continue to read his work!


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## Deblombardi (May 15, 2014)

Here is the problem that I have with Kris' advice - she's wrong on a lot of things, and impressionable newbies might listen to her, and this will surely stall their careers.

Case in point - I clearly remember a blog post last year that said that indies should not, under any circumstances, promote a free book. The logic was something like that you shouldn't spend money to promote something that is free. 

All can say is thank god I didn't see that blog post and take it to heart, because I did promote my freebie that same month (November 2013), with a BB ad. And my earnings shot up from $1,000 in October 2013 to $11,000 November 2013. I promote my freebies all the time with ads, and cleared $130,000 in 2014. So, yeah, worst.advice.ever.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Deblombardi said:


> Here is the problem that I have with Kris' advice - she's wrong on a lot of things, and impressionable newbies might listen to her, and this will surely stall their careers.


Agreed. I think there's some really good stuff in what Kris and Dean write and teach, but unfortunately it's sort of stuffed into a box with a lot of other useless junk. And I don't think a newbie can sort out what's useful and what isn't because they lack experience and they also hear other writers saying that they're advice is good, etc. etc.

So I think it's helpful to have people critique their message and point out where they seem to be off, or where their advice hasn't square with another person's experiences.

At the same time, I won't knock everything they say. And I won't even go so far as to say that the good advice DWS and KKR give is just generic and could be found anywhere. I think DWS says some really great stuff in a unique way and I appreciate very much what he brings to the table from his own experience.

That being said--some of his ideas could absolutely sink your career if you're not careful.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

After a quick google search, I found this article: http://kriswrites.com/2012/06/13/the-business-rusch-hurry-up-wait/#sthash.pJ1E6w6b.dpbs

And in that article, she clearly writes this tidbit about promotion:

"So indie writers who promote their book instead of writing the next book are wasting their time. The more books you've written, the more books you'll sell. That's how it works. That's how it's always worked."

And I've seen other stuff like this from both her and Dean. They both do some temporary promotions and temporary loss leaders, but some of what they say about pricing and marketing is just flat-out bad advice, from my experience.

It's true that the more books you write, the better you'll do. And it's also true that wasting time and money on tons of promoting and blog tours and ineffective activity is not going to get you anywhere.

But they're wrong about permafree, they're wrong about permanent loss leaders, permanent 99 cent priced box sets, they're wrong about writing to trends and writing in hot genres. Those are big, big, pieces of the puzzle to be wrong about.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Edward M. Grant said:


> Yeah, I've read that kind of thing often on their blogs. But that's not saying that writers shouldn't promote a free book, that's saying writers shouldn't spend time promoting books in general.


How can you promote a free book if you're not promoting any books? It's bad advice. I used to say the same thing myself, and I was wrong. Some promotion is actually necessary nowadays, unfortunately. Now, if that's the only part they said that was wrong, it would be one thing.

But the entire contemporary e-pub business side of it, from promotions, to pricing, to genres and keywords and algo's--they are wrong on all of that stuff.

However, if you listen to them on the production side, you can still learn an awful lot about what it means to be a pro and how to be a high-volume writer, and I'll take a high-volume writer over a low-volume one any day, in terms of the odds of them succeeding.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Edward M. Grant said:


> Sigh. I specifically responded to a specific claim that she had specifically said that writers shouldn't promote *FREE* books, asking for a specific citation for that specific claim, because it seems specifically silly.


She clearly states that promoting ANY book is a waste of time. That probably would tend to include a free book as well.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

ThomasDiehl said:


> It does work, though, doesn't it? I mean, for them.
> 
> Those are people who go the "author as a brand" route to such a point where it doesn't matter what they write anymore. They don't sell books, they sell their reputation. And in that regard, Rusch and DWS have achieved absolute mastery.


No. It doesn't. They're averaging $100 per book per year across their list.

Yes, they sell classes about selling books. Unfortunately, they don't actually sell any, you know, BOOKS.


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## ricola (Mar 3, 2014)

Edward M. Grant said:


> Yeah, I've read that kind of thing often on their blogs. But that's not saying that writers shouldn't promote a free book, that's saying writers shouldn't spend time promoting books in general.


I promote the heck out of my books.

PROMOTE YOUR WORK.

I do want to caution, though, that you can break your neck chasing trends. What genre is hot? The two things that people say most often are actually so incredibly overcrowded now that breaking out--especially with yet more sameness--is nearly impossible. At this point, every time I see someone new jumping into several arenas, I just laugh. They often make a little money, but traction is almost impossible to find.

It's important to notice trends, yes. It's also important to notice HUNGER. Look for where there are more readers wanting something than writers providing it. If you would like to write that thing, it's a happy spot for you.


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## Deblombardi (May 15, 2014)

Edward M. Grant said:


> Sigh. I specifically responded to a specific claim that she had specifically said that writers shouldn't promote *FREE* books, asking for a specific citation for that specific claim, because it seems specifically silly.


http://kriswrites.com/2014/01/22/the-business-rusch-pricing-part-2-or-discoverability-part-7-continued/#sthash.JTPU8dco.dpbs

"Do not pay to give away your book for free. Places like BookBub and other advertising newsletters will list free books, but you have to pay to buy an ad with those companies. The only way to recoup that ad money is to have many books published, preferably in the same series. But most people don't read their free books. So you're losing money on your BookBub ad, at least in the foreseeable future. It's okay to discount to a lower price (not free) for those ads-again, if you have a strategy in place (and more than one book published)-because you will probably recoup the cost of your ad. But advertising a product for free is something you should do only if you have deep pockets and money to burn. And a lot of other published books. Even then, I don't recommend it. Why? See the math for the free promotion above. You've just added the cost of your BookBub ad to the halo effect of your free promotion. Instead of selling 15 copies each of Books Two and Three, now you'll need to sell 50 or 100 copies each of those books (depending on price) to pay for that ad. Always have a strategy for your free books. Always. Then measure that strategy and see if it actually succeeded. Often, these strategies do not. Or they succeed on the free title, and not other titles. - See more at: http://kriswrites.com/2014/01/22/the-business-rusch-pricing-part-2-or-discoverability-part-7-continued/#sthash.JTPU8dco.dpuf"


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

ʬ said:


> It's important to notice trends, yes. It's also important to notice HUNGER. Look for where there are more readers wanting something than writers providing it. If you would like to write that thing, it's a happy spot for you.


Yeah, I get where you're coming from on this. It's a more nuanced approach, and it's one that makes sense if you can find the right balance. Once the market for a particular niche is getting saturated, it's harder for a particular book to break out.

If the demand is high and the supply is low, your book has a better shot. So how do you notice that particular situation arising? It would take really familiarizing yourself with all the niches in particular genres, watching the lists, noticing when one or two or more books all started to rocket up the charts, and seeing that there aren't a lot of others out there for readers to move onto.

That situation sort of happened to me, only it was mostly an accident at the time. I lucked out, but my partner and I had been watching the lists and it was brought to my attention that a certain book was ranked very highly. When I saw this book was riding so high, my mind was blown for a number of reasons. And I thought--holy cow, if they can do it, so can I.

And I went out and wrote something that was in the same niche, but had my own story, my own spin on things. It took off.

I did get lucky because at that time, the niche was underserved and I'd happened to catch a wave. Since then, I haven't ever been quite on top of the trend, but I've come close enough to do quite well with other books in other niches, so I realize its repeatable.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Deblombardi said:


> http://kriswrites.com/2014/01/22/the-business-rusch-pricing-part-2-or-discoverability-part-7-continued/#sthash.JTPU8dco.dpbs
> 
> "Do not pay to give away your book for free.


Yup, that's some poor advice and poorly reasoned, too. There are plenty of examples on these here boards of people advertising their free books and cleaning up on the paid sales that it generates afterwards.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

That was pretty specific.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

The point remains for me that she's been on every side of the industry for the last 25 years. She's seen lots of people go up. She's seen lots of people go down. She's seen multiple disruptions of the market. Right now, she sees disruption of this market. So what's going to get you past that? If you're a pro, you need a plan for the other side.

$50k right now is great. Will the market be there for us in two years? What happens when our genre crashes? What happens when our promotions peter out? What KKR proffers is long-term strategy over short-term profit. A pro is aiming at 20-30 years, a career. What does that look like?


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2014)

I'm with everyone else who says that Kris and Dean's marketing advice is terrible. It's the worst self-publishing advice that I've heard, which is odd, since the best self-publishing advice I've heard has come from them as well. But definitely don't take everything they say as gospel just because they said it.

In my experience, you learn marketing and promotion the way you learn everything else as an indie: by doing it yourself. The longer you put it off, the longer it's going to set you back.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Douglas Milewski said:


> Right now, she sees disruption of this market. So what's going to get you past that? If you're a pro, you need a plan for the other side.
> 
> $50k right now is great. Will the market be there for us in two years? What happens when our genre crashes? What happens when our promotions peter out? What KKR proffers is long-term strategy over short-term profit. A pro is aiming at 20-30 years, a career. What does that look like?


The thing is, if you can't make it work right now, then who's to say you can make it in 2 years when the whole thing gets disrupted yet again? None of us can predict the kind of disruption or how it will look.

And that means we're all at the mercy of the whims of circumstance.

That means, if you want to have success, success comes now by responding to what's happening now. I think it's amazing that KKR and DWS have been professionals and working at this for years. But it seems to me that in terms of business, they advocate a method of just putting your head down and plowing forward.

This is a method that works in terms of staying productive.

It's not a method that will allow you to really launch your business unless you happen to stumble into something. And in fact, much of their current ebook publishing advice that's specific to this digital market will make you less successful in this climate.

How can you withstand a disruption if you're just barely staying afloat in the most wonderful, amazing situation writers have ever been witness to? I would argue that if you can't make it big financially the way things have been the last few years, your chances are only going to decrease in the future, because there's little chance things will stay this good.

Make hay while the sun shines. Get it while the getting's good and all of that.

There's nothing wrong with putting your head down and plodding forward when it needs to be done. But that shouldn't be your only response. And right now, there are a million ways to make a killing in this business if you're savvy, but some of the advice they spout is actively opposed to making the most of the current marketplace.

Note that I am making a distinction between their craft and production advice, which I love vs their marketing, pricing and ebook-specific advice, which I think is mostly wrong.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Douglas Milewski said:


> The point remains for me that she's been on every side of the industry for the last 25 years. She's seen lots of people go up. She's seen lots of people go down. She's seen multiple disruptions of the market. Right now, she sees disruption of this market. So what's going to get you past that? If you're a pro, you need a plan for the other side.
> 
> $50k right now is great. Will the market be there for us in two years? What happens when our genre crashes? What happens when our promotions peter out? What KKR proffers is long-term strategy over short-term profit. A pro is aiming at 20-30 years, a career. What does that look like?


50,000+ sales now at .99 means 35,000+ sales at 2.99, means 25,000+ sales at 3.99-4.99 later in the series. In my direct and current experience. If that changes, it changes. Guess what? Long-term strat people will also then... change their strat. Being told "don't worry about failing now, you have the long game" is kind of silly, sorry. The bigger picture with things that KKR/DWS revile all lead to more sales and a long game. I have two series with four books each in them at the moment. One has a freebie first book, one has a .99 first book. I sell tens of thousands of copies of the books that follow at 2.99, 3.99, and soon 4.99 (have over 1500 copies in a week pre-sold on the pre-order for the 4.99 book and it will likely hit 8,000-10,000 pre-orders). I get 10-20 mailing list sign-ups a day.

My long game is having the capital, the sales, the mailing list, and the momentum. Because I pay attention to what works today, I am ready to shift strats if it doesn't work tomorrow.

Kris thinks she is the tortoise, but she's really the hare sleeping under the tree, telling herself that she's playing some nebulous long game so that success or failure now doesn't mean anything. Meanwhile, those of us actually paying attention to what works NOW are building our own future a step at a time.


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## storyteller (Feb 3, 2014)

Yeah, their craft and production advice I've read in their blogs has been absolutely great, especially good stuff for perfectionists needing to slay some myths interfering with finishing stuff.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

ㅈㅈ said:


> 50,000+ sales now at .99 means 35,000+ sales at 2.99, means 25,000+ sales at 3.99-4.99 later in the series. In my direct and current experience. If that changes, it changes. Guess what? Long-term strat people will also then... change their strat. Being told "don't worry about failing now, you have the long game" is kind of silly, sorry. The bigger picture with things that KKR/DWS revile all lead to more sales and a long game. I have two series with four books each in them at the moment. One has a freebie first book, one has a .99 first book. I sell tens of thousands of copies of the books that follow at 2.99, 3.99, and soon 4.99 (have over 1500 copies in a week pre-sold on the pre-order for the 4.99 book and it will likely hit 8,000-10,000 pre-orders). I get 10-20 mailing list sign-ups a day.
> 
> My long game is having the capital, the sales, the mailing list, and the momentum. Because I pay attention to what works today, I am ready to shift strats if it doesn't work tomorrow.
> 
> Kris thinks she is the tortoise, but she's really the hare sleeping under the tree, telling herself that she's playing some nebulous long game so that success or failure now doesn't mean anything. Meanwhile, those of us actually paying attention to what works NOW are building our own future a step at a time.


Spot on.

However, although you've had a bad experience with them--and I agree that they're mostly in the business of selling classes, etc--I still like their craft/production advice and modeling the pulp style of writing. That's my style, albeit I disregard a lot of the ways they implement that style from a business perspective.

There are a lot of writers who could benefit from slaying some of the sacred cows that Dean talks about.


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## MonkeyScribe (Jan 27, 2011)

> The Gold Rush Has Ended
> 
> Even those whose talent for denial is as big as the ocean can see that now. Yes, there was a gold rush and it was brief. It happened mostly in 2009 and early 2010, when there wasn't enough material on Amazon's Kindle Store to satisfy the needs of the readers with their brand new Kindle devices. Couple that with the relative ease of uploading books onto Amazon's e-book platform, and the barriers to publication broke down.


I think what she means is "I had a couple of pans in the stream that turned up an ounce or two of gold flakes, but since I've been panning in the same bloody spot since 2009, it seems that there's less and less gold here."


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

MichaelWallace said:


> I think what she means is "I had a couple of pans in the stream that turned up an ounce or two of gold flakes, but since I've been panning in the same bloody spot since 2009, it seems that there's less and less gold here."


Funny thing is, for me 2012 was EPIC. I had a few months in there where my head was spinning. And it's happening again now, in 2014, after some down months.

Things have changed in many ways, but there's still gold in them thar hills.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

> But definitely don't take everything they say as gospel just because they said it.


This is the bit that gets me every single time.

You should NEVER take as gospel anything anyone says. Never. Anyone. Use your brain and see if a piece of advice appeals to you. Try it. If it works, fine. If not, try something else.


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## Diane Patterson (Jun 17, 2012)

ㅈㅈ said:


> 50,000+ sales now at .99 means 35,000+ sales at 2.99, means 25,000+ sales at 3.99-4.99 later in the series. In my direct and current experience. If that changes, it changes. Guess what? Long-term strat people will also then... change their strat. Being told "don't worry about failing now, you have the long game" is kind of silly, sorry. The bigger picture with things that KKR/DWS revile all lead to more sales and a long game. I have two series with four books each in them at the moment. One has a freebie first book, one has a .99 first book. I sell tens of thousands of copies of the books that follow at 2.99, 3.99, and soon 4.99 (have over 1500 copies in a week pre-sold on the pre-order for the 4.99 book and it will likely hit 8,000-10,000 pre-orders). I get 10-20 mailing list sign-ups a day.
> 
> My long game is having the capital, the sales, the mailing list, and the momentum. Because I pay attention to what works today, I am ready to shift strats if it doesn't work tomorrow.
> 
> Kris thinks she is the tortoise, but she's really the hare sleeping under the tree, telling herself that she's playing some nebulous long game so that success or failure now doesn't mean anything. Meanwhile, those of us actually paying attention to what works NOW are building our own future a step at a time.


+1


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I agree, Gorvnice. Their Character Voice and Setting workshop (just called Character Voice back when I took it out at the coast) is still the best workshop I've ever taken. It was super helpful. It's one of the things that makes me so sad about how things have gone with them. I do think they can teach a lot to people, especially with craft. It's the poor marketing advice, the lies about their results, and the problems with their methods that I have issue with.  If they would just be honest about what their results are and what their methods can and can't do for people, it would be a different story, I think. Then it would be easier for people to decide for themselves what to take or leave, since they would be getting actual real information. 

There are plenty of people who model the pulp speed of writing AND manage to be successful on the business side. I know most of them have left Kboards for many of the sames reasons I've gone mostly anon, but there are still great threads in the archives here from people like Elle Casey, HM Ward, Russell Blake, etc. People who write a lot of books plus manage to stay on top of current marketing ideas, utilize advertising in smart ways, etc. 

And of course, there are Heinlein's Rules. Which are still pretty good advice.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

ㅈㅈ said:


> I agree, Gorvnice. Their Character Voice and Setting workshop (just called Character Voice back when I took it out at the coast) is still the best workshop I've ever taken. It was super helpful.
> 
> There are plenty of people who model the pulp speed of writing AND manage to be successful on the business side. I know most of them have left Kboards for many of the sames reasons I've gone mostly anon, but there are still great threads in the archives here from people like Elle Casey, HM Ward, Russell Blake, etc. People who write a lot of books plus manage to stay on top of current marketing ideas, utilize advertising in smart ways, etc.
> 
> And of course, there are Heinlein's Rules. Which are still pretty good advice.


Interesting post and well said.

The thing that I like about DWS is that he didn't just write a few posts about his craft and style, but he actively models it on his blog, day after day, for YEARS. I've been reading his posts the way I would read a good novel, and I enjoy his thoughts about his life and the way he approaches this industry&#8230;even though I DISAGREE with the way he approaches this industry from a purely business standpoint.

There aren't many folks who have committed to putting so much of their thoughts out there on a regular basis, as far as their style and approach and the continued refinement of it.

So I have a big appreciation of that side of it, even though I'm aware, like you've said, that some of the methodology stuff simply doesn't line up with my experience at all. And I think newbies should be made aware of it too, so they have an ability to gauge whether they truly want to go down such a path.

As long as writers are made aware of the choices, I truly encourage people to go their own route. But sometimes people think they're taking path A when really they're taking path B or C and the results of that can be disheartening to say the least.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

gorvnice said:


> So I have a big appreciation of that side of it, even though I'm aware, like you've said, that some of the methodology stuff simply doesn't line up with my experience at all. And I think newbies should be made aware of it too, so they have an ability to gauge whether they truly want to go down such a path.


I think what frustrates me about most of the KKR and DWS threads is that the nuances between "read their stuff with a big grain of salt because their craft information is great while their business stuff isn't so hot" and "omg don't read them, they're not selling, what could they possibly know" are easily lost in the furor. They have a lot to offer writers; just not everything. And what they do have to offer is worth reading. Other writers have insights into what sells now. Take bits from them all.


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## Jarrett Rush (Jun 19, 2010)

I have not been the biggest reader of either of them, but there is something to be said about not chasing trends. But mostly I think that's because if you just try to write in hot genres and not genres you like or are comfortable in you run the risk of burnout. Or, at least, I'd assume you would. That's why you need the balance that others have mentioned. Know your genre, know what's happening there and in genres that are related. Follow those trends for sure. But if you're just trying to write what's hot then I'd think at some point the pleasure that comes from the process of creating would disappear. That'd be especially true if you tried to catch onto a shooting star but your project never really found an audience. Have that happen more than once, and I'd imagine that it'd be hard to want to try it another time.

Just my two cents. YMMV.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Jim Johnson said:


> I think what frustrates me about most of the KKR and DWS threads is that the nuances between "read their stuff with a big grain of salt because their craft information is great while their business stuff isn't so hot" and "omg don't read them, they're not selling, what could they possibly know" are easily lost in the furor. They have a lot to offer writers; just not everything. And what they do have to offer is worth reading. Other writers have insights into what sells now. Take bits from them all.


Sure, agreed from my end. I love the pulp speed group that was formed from kboards based on DWS's writings. I think that sort of thing is a really cool idea, and if the authors engaging in that group really embrace it, they will get a lot out of it.

However, the big caveat from my end, would be that writing at a high volume is much more beneficial when paired with choosing markets that give you the best chance of success. Do both. Write at high volume in good markets.

And then, if you want, you still have time/ability to write in your favorite genre, even if its small with little sales potential.

It's like how big movie stars will do some blockbuster and then switch gears to do an indie film for scale. They need to try and make blockbusters to earn a living, but that doesn't prevent them from doing stage and smaller films if they enjoy that.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Jim Johnson said:


> I think what frustrates me about most of the KKR and DWS threads is that the nuances between "read their stuff with a big grain of salt because their craft information is great while their business stuff isn't so hot" and "omg don't read them, they're not selling, what could they possibly know" are easily lost in the furor. They have a lot to offer writers; just not everything. And what they do have to offer is worth reading. Other writers have insights into what sells now. Take bits from them all.


True. But when they write business posts, about the business of things, I think it is totally fair to point out the inconsistencies and their results in the light of talking about the business side of things. If this were a craft post and we were discussing their business advice, perhaps that would be less relevant. But she wrote about what indies supposedly learned on the business side, so taking that into context is appropriate, I think. 

Another thing in the article that is a bit misleading is the supposed results from informally polling Kboards and looking at formerly selling authors who aren't around anymore. Many of them have left or gone anon. Many others dropped early pen names and write under names that wouldn't be easy to find. I know far more indies who were successful in 2011/2012 (and posting here) who have changed names or gone dark but are still publishing and doing very well than I do indies who were doing well back then and have quit. Many of the people I know from those years who quit were the ones not doing well, frankly. Or the ones who got one hit, didn't keep up with things and capitalize on trends and marketing changes, and stopped after a book or two. They failed in part because they didn't do the things Kris says will cause failure (changing pricing, marketing, keeping up with what works now etc).


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

ㅈㅈ said:


> I know far more indies who were successful in 2011/2012 (and posting here) who have changed names or gone dark but are still publishing and doing very well than I do indies who were doing well back then and have quit.


Yeah, I went dark too. Absolutely no good reason to be putting stuff out there anymore. I like discussing my ideas and talking business with those things standing on their own merits. And I don't mind when someone else engages me who keeps their pen names and identity under wraps. I feel like I can tell from what and how they post, whether they know of what they speak or not.


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## RBK (Nov 28, 2014)

Regardless of anyone's views and standpoints, there really is some fantastic business advice in this thread.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

gorvnice said:


> Sure, agreed from my end. I love the pulp speed group that was formed from kboards based on DWS's writings. I think that sort of thing is a really cool idea, and if the authors engaging in that group really embrace it, they will get a lot out of it.


So far, so good. I don't think I can speak for all the members, but I sure am having fun. 



gorvnice said:


> However, the big caveat from my end, would be that writing at a high volume is much more beneficial when paired with choosing markets that give you the best chance of success. Do both. Write at high volume in good markets.
> 
> And then, if you want, you still have time/ability to write in your favorite genre, even if its small with little sales potential.


I agree with this in principle, though it's really up to each writer to determine what's successful for them. There's a risk in chasing markets if those markets aren't something a given writer enjoys reading or writing in. I'd rather write something I was passionate about than try to learn the ins and outs of a 'good market' and write something that fit, even if I wasn't passionate about it. That reminds me of the years I was chasing media tie-in work, and those were depressing.


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## Jarrett Rush (Jun 19, 2010)

RKC said:


> Regardless of anyone's views and standpoints, there really is some fantastic business advice in this thread.


Agreed. I've been around Kboards since 2011. The amount of super smart business advice that I'm seeing lately is pretty astounding. I'm taking some of it that I feel like I can make work for me and I'm leaving the rest of it. But all of it is good stuff, just not applicable to where I'm at.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Hopefully more big names will return to kboards under pseudonyms, where they can engage without fear of reprisals.  The info is still good info, people.  I believe a few of us here are doing numbers that would make us well listened to if we put them up for public consumption, but the price of that is simply too high.

Who wants to deal with what Hugh deals with on a regular basis here?  Not me.

But come back, come back under a new name with no books in your siggy line and just engage on this business!  It's fun and helpful


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

So gimme this, with all the pseudonymery going on, and people advocating that you check on one's sales numbers before actually, y'know, believing the sales advice people are giving, how do we even know that any of the advice is good. That is the danger.

At least KKR and DWS put their cards on the table, and you can go over to Amazon and check the rankings of their books and think whatever you want about the advice. 

I actually hate it when people get slapped in the face with their crappy sales rankings around here, as if someone whose ranking isn't very good because they're in between books or something has nothing useful to say. But on the other hand, I've seen enough liars in this world to take anyone who claims big sales but with no way to ID said sales with a huge grain of salt.

Maybe that's just me.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Patty Jansen said:


> So gimme this, with all the pseudonymery going on, and people advocating that you check on one's sales numbers before actually, y'know, believing the sales advice people are giving, how do we even know that any of the advice is good. That is the danger.
> 
> At least KKR and DWS put their cards on the table, and you can go over to Amazon and check the rankings of their books and think whatever you want about the advice.
> 
> ...


Difference #1: I'm not charging anyone to take a class to learn about my experience. 
Difference #2: I'm not saying that my advice is so right that you have to listen to me or be doomed.
Difference #3: I've never given a direct statement of my sales or numbers.

Maybe you weren't speaking directly to me, but since I brought up pseudonyms and so forth, I'll take it that way. I think it's very possible to evaluate what people say based on their arguments, statements and the evidence they give outside of just saying "hey, I did this and it worked/didn't work."

Always take everything everyone says with a big grain of salt. Absolutely. For those of us who have the experience, I think we can tell who knows what they're talking about based on how and what they say. Maybe not 100% of the time, but enough to make the conversations worthwhile.

Heck, do I like knowing Phoenix Sullivan wrote a post, or Courtney Milan or Hugh? Absolutely. But if people are getting run off the boards, I'd rather have Courtney here under a pen name engaging, then being totally absent. Thats just me...


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> I actually hate it when people get slapped in the face with their crappy sales rankings around here, as if someone whose ranking isn't very good because they're in between books or something has nothing useful to say. But on the other hand, I've seen enough liars in this world to take anyone who claims big sales but with no way to ID said sales with a huge grain of salt.


I chalk it up to giving everyone the benefit of the doubt unless they consistently come across as jerks. Anonymous or otherwise, if the advice sounds reasonable, I'll consider it.

Also, we're all writers. We lie for a living. Important to remember that when reading anything in WC, especially sales figures.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I tend to hold someone who writes business posts and sells business/marketing workshops up to a higher standard than someone who just posts something on a forum. That's my personal take on it.


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## storyteller (Feb 3, 2014)

It's extremely hard to maintain a fictional persona over time.  The people who are making money sound like it, even if they don't have signatures with links.  They tend to have a casualness that marks someone who is working a system with good results.  I used to be in sales, you can nearly always tell who's really pulling in the big bucks and who's putting on a game face but not banking.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

ㅈㅈ said:


> I learned by reading that blog that the 50,000+ copies I've sold at .99 means I'm failing. Whew. I was so confused by these huge checks I've been getting that I thought I was succeeding. I'm glad KKR could set me straight


and


ricola said:


> Look, the reason to sell 50k books at $.99 isn't the $17,500 you get on those book. It's because if your books are good, you then sell 30,000 of the next book in the series at $3.99 and make $83,790. And the next book you sell 25,500 and make $89,000.


I interpreted what she said completely differently. Not that she said that you shouldn't give away books or price books at 99 cents, but that there's a difference between giving away 50k books and selling 50k books at 99 cents and selling 50k books at $4.99 and up. And there is. The first two options don't give you a living wage. She said "first book" but I think "only" book would have been a better choice, and that's how I interpreted that bit, as being aimed at first-time writers. If you look at it from that perspective, I think it makes perfect sense.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

ㅈㅈ said:


> 50,000+ sales now at .99 means 35,000+ sales at 2.99, means 25,000+ sales at 3.99-4.99 later in the series. In my direct and current experience. If that changes, it changes. Guess what? Long-term strat people will also then... change their strat. Being told "don't worry about failing now, you have the long game" is kind of silly, sorry. The bigger picture with things that KKR/DWS revile all lead to more sales and a long game. I have two series with four books each in them at the moment. One has a freebie first book, one has a .99 first book. I sell tens of thousands of copies of the books that follow at 2.99, 3.99, and soon 4.99 (have over 1500 copies in a week pre-sold on the pre-order for the 4.99 book and it will likely hit 8,000-10,000 pre-orders). I get 10-20 mailing list sign-ups a day.
> 
> My long game is having the capital, the sales, the mailing list, and the momentum. Because I pay attention to what works today, I am ready to shift strats if it doesn't work tomorrow.
> 
> Kris thinks she is the tortoise, but she's really the hare sleeping under the tree, telling herself that she's playing some nebulous long game so that success or failure now doesn't mean anything. Meanwhile, those of us actually paying attention to what works NOW are building our own future a step at a time.


That is an awesome post and some awesome points.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Anne Victory said:


> and
> I interpreted what she said completely differently. Not that she said that you shouldn't give away books or price books at 99 cents, but that there's a difference between giving away 50k books and selling 50k books at 99 cents and selling 50k books at $4.99 and up. And there is. The first two options don't give you a living wage. She said "first book" but I think "only" book would have been a better choice, and that's how I interpreted that bit, as being aimed at first-time writers. If you look at it from that perspective, I think it makes perfect sense.


Unfortunately, she does mean first book. Not only book. I explained more via PM. There are a host of reasons behind why KKR and DWS think low pricing for intro books doesn't work long term and a lot of it is based on poor data. They haven't had good long term results from running sales, so I can see why they would come to the conclusion that it wouldn't work. The reality is, they haven't actually tried the things that might work. I wholeheartedly believe that Kris could sell tens of thousands of copies of her books if she'd actually pay attention to what is working today, but it would require a pretty big about-face on their advice to try and I think selling workshops is more important to them than taking a risk with the fiction side that could hurt their image by having to retract so much they've been adamant about for years.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

I've been here for a while and know who some of you are, but I've also seen posts by people claiming big things and going WTF. And I've spoken to newbies who were actually taking that as gospel. I'm finding it a really dangerous trend. 

Some people will never go under a pseudonym and can I just say I love Courtney, H. Ward, Hugh, Mark Cooper, J.R. Tomlin and all the people whose names escape me, who sell well and remain open. And KKR, for the same reason.

As for charging for their workshops. Man, a lot of BS gets told in a lot of writing courses. All the local symposiums I've attended... I was banging my head against the wall. People were paying for these "courses", too. And no one dared criticise. Or even felt the need to. Come to think of it, I've paid for a university degree where some stuff was being taught that later turned out to be BS.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

ㅈㅈ said:


> Unfortunately, she does mean first book. Not only book. I explained more via PM. There are a host of reasons behind why KKR and DWS think low pricing for intro books doesn't work long term and a lot of it is based on poor data. They haven't had good long term results from running sales, so I can see why they would come to the conclusion that it wouldn't work. The reality is, they haven't actually tried the things that might work. I wholeheartedly believe that Kris could sell tens of thousands of copies of her books if she'd actually pay attention to what is working today, but it would require a pretty big about-face on their advice to try and I think selling workshops is more important to them than taking a risk with the fiction side that could hurt their image by having to retract so much they've been adamant about for years.


Ah--thanks. I don't generally keep up with their posts, so each article I tend to take at face value. As for trying new things--you kind of have to. Unfortunately, some people are completely set in their ways or are concerned with saving face. And ironically, that's a big part of what keeps traditional publishing stagnant.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Patty Jansen said:


> Some people will never go under a pseudonym and can I just say I love Courtney, H. Ward, Hugh, Mark Cooper, J.R. Tomlin and all the people whose names escape me, who sell well and remain open. And KKR, for the same reason.


Yeah, I absolutely take my hat off to people who come on here, yourself included, and engage under their real name or a pen name that might as well be a real name, due to the exposure and visibility they get from it. A lot of it can be negative, and for me, it's not worth it.

No question, a post written by Hugh or Courtney or Phoenix will be, and should be, treated with more respect than say--a post I write, for example. It's only natural.

But I am encouraging those, like myself, who don't want to deal with the fallout of being public here, to perhaps consider returning under a pseudonym so they can still engage about this business and perhaps help themselves and others by doing so.

Losing people like Russell Blake because they don't want to deal anymore is just a shame. I'd much rather have him back engaging under a new name, and maybe we'd suspect it was him anyway, but we could never be sure...


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## Sever Bronny (May 13, 2013)

gorvnice said:


> Yeah, I absolutely take my hat off to people who come on here, yourself included, and engage under their real name or a pen name that might as well be a real name, due to the exposure and visibility they get from it. A lot of it can be negative, and for me, it's not worth it.
> 
> No question, a post written by Hugh or Courtney or Phoenix will be, and should be, treated with more respect than say--a post I write, for example. It's only natural.
> 
> ...


That's why as a community we can shoot ourselves in the foot if we're too quick to jump down people's throats. A lot of nuance is lost in text, so it's particularly easy to do that in a forum. No one actually means harm--we're all doing the best we can with what we know. If we concentrate on being kind and polite to one another first then arguing ideas, we'd all be much better off.

I have a feeling more than a few prominent voices have turned their backs on this forum because of the occasional vitriol directed at them. It's particularly discouraging when they're only trying to help.

So yeah, argue the idea, not the person


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

I want to address Patty's statement about BS.    I know an author who made several crucial mistakes because of taking some things said as gospel.    First off, the author read a book that big name independent author had supposedly said that every indie author needs to read.      Rather the big name author actually recommended it may or may not be true.    But that was in the blurb.    Secondly,  the author mistakenly thought that because same big name author wrote serials,  he could follow in the footsteps and do the same.  Problem being he had obviously not read said author's book and was trying to do the same thing in a different genre.  The author thought because the big main category was the same,  he could copy this author that was in a very different category when you got to the second tier.  Also cliffhangers,  he thought he could just stop a book any old place and just add a new conflict to the old one.
Last big mistake the author did was listening to the ones that said grammar doesn't matter.    Now it may not matter for all books and that grammar is more sentence structure on the big sellers.

Oh and the book he read was more for non-Fiction than fiction.


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## Evan of the R. (Oct 15, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> I actually hate it when people get slapped in the face with their crappy sales rankings around here, as if someone whose ranking isn't very good because they're in between books or something has nothing useful to say.


Béla Károlyi can't do a simple handstand. He's had no success at all on the balance beam or the bars. He's overweight, old and inflexible. His only real success in sports was as a boxer (and even that was decades ago, and low-grade). As a gymnast, Béla Károlyi is an absolute and total failure.

And yet Béla Károlyi still managed to advise and coach Nadia Comăneci, Mary Lou Retton, Kristie Phillips and dozens of other gymnasts to the highest success in their careers.

To say nothing about KKR and DWS either way, you don't have to be a huge success in your field in order to offer valuable advice to others in that field.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Evan of the R. said:


> Bela Karolyi can't do a simple handstand. He's had no success at all on the balance beam or the bars. He's overweight, old and inflexible. His only real success in sports was as a boxer (and even that was decades ago, and low-grade). As a gymnast, Bela Karolyi is an absolute and total failure.
> 
> And yet Bela Karolyi still managed to advise and coach Nadia Comăneci, Mary Lou Retton, Kristie Phillips and dozens of other gymnasts to the highest success in their careers.
> 
> To say nothing about KKR and DWS either way, you don't have to be a huge success in your field in order to offer valuable advice to others in that field.


I imagine Bela utilized the advice and methods in his coaching that was working, however, instead of insisting that what doesn't work is just fine because it can work eventually in that magical place called "long term"...


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## Evan of the R. (Oct 15, 2013)

Fair enough. I imagine that about Bela, too. 

I just don't think it's fair — not saying you did this, mind — for folks to denigrate the advice of KKR and DWS because they don't sell a lot. 

Denigrate them for other reasons, sure. But not for that.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I dismiss their advice because I spent four years following it, watching many other people around me follow it, and nobody got results.

I'd have a lot fewer issues with them if they would just a) be honest about their results and b) not sell their advice. We all have opinions. The difference is, I don't try to package and sell mine as expert advice. 

I will also always dismiss anyone who can't see that selling 50,000 copies of a book at .99 or giving away 50,000 copies in order to sell through more of your series and grow your mailing list is a good idea and not at all remotely like failure. Because someone who says that is clearly unaware of or totally dismissing the hundreds of people who have made funneling readers into their work through free and low pricing a reality and are earning very good livings from doing so. 

Personally, my opinion is that Kris should try it. Take one of her series, put the first book at .99 or perma-free, run a BB in a large category (she ran her mystery in the African-American Lit category last time, which resulted in poorer results and almost no sell-through because the smaller list, while much more affordable, doesn't have the same reach as the Mystery list and her follow-on books were priced too high), price the follow-on books under 5 bucks each, and see what happens for a few months. It would go against everything she preaches and that they sell, so I doubt it would happen, but I bet the results would be surprising to no one but them. 

As a business I look at the long term and series especially not in terms of what each book will sell, but in how much I'll make on the series as a whole. If putting a book at free or .99 makes the series earn more and raises my income, I do it. If something tomorrow comes along that has the same effect, I'll do that. That is what being flexible and on top of things means, to me. It's sort of the opposite of just throwing stuff up and hoping there is a market for it, and hoping it will magically sell itself someday in the magical "long term" that everyone talks about but still arrives for each of us just one day at a time.


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## Luis dA (Jun 1, 2014)

Their advice appears fundamentally based on publishing often. Not everyone can or wishes to type 90,000 words a month, revise, and repeat. If someone publishes that way and pushes out ten-plus books a year, perhaps their advice becomes sound after two to three years of typing. For everyone else, their fundamental advice would have been unsound. I don’t know, I’m thinking maybe of the low production Dan Brown types. Imagine them hammering out a million words a year. Different approaches will suit different authors / publishers. There may be no bad; there may just be bad choices.


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## delly_xo (Oct 29, 2014)

I thought the advice was fair and fundamentally true; regarding their promotional/marketing strategies, even the post alludes to the fact that this evolves due to the market and time (which I agree with) so I don't believe they should be called out on previous advice.


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## Guest (Dec 25, 2014)

1) Agree with this: My response:

So you're saying that you sell 50k books at $4.99?

Look, the reason to sell 50k books at $.99 isn't the $17,500 you get on those book. It's because if your books are good, you then sell 30,000 of the next book in the series at $3.99 and make $83,790. And the next book you sell 25,500 and make $89,000.

Suddenly, instead of limping along on a few books per series per year and pretending that you're a professional, you're actually a real writer.

Congrats. You're now an indie midlister instead of an indie bottom-of-the-barreler.



2) The author wrote a very honest article of how she feels and her experiences. However, it seems she took a 'glass half-empty' attitude to it.

3) The SINGLE BIGGEST THING authors don't realize is that it's NOT

Scenario 1: World of Publishing is always changing. It's so hard to keep up.

It's actually

REALITY 1: Indie Authors are the Barbarians at the Gate and ALL INCUMBENTS GET DESTROYED if they get in.

Do you really think Publishers could survive if indie authors with books at $1 and $2 and $3 took over the bestseller charts?
Could book stores?
Could ebook stores?

If Indie Author strategies that were working were not reined in (by whatever means necessary) first the print book part of the market would fall, then Publishers would get killed/cut down to smaller sizes, then the books and bookstores and the ebookstores would have to evolve backwards.

SERIOUSLY, sit down and calm your mind and ask yourself -

If 70 of the Top 100 books in the bestseller charts were indie authors with $1 and $2 and $3 books - who would die? Who would survive?

Back in 2010/early 2011 indies had 20-30 of the Top 100 spots. Indie Authors used to have 3-4 of the Top 10. The NATURAL progression would have been indie authors taking over 70% to 80% of the bestseller lists.

Readers favor indie authors at $1 and $2 and $3 over established authors at $10. The difference in quality isn't very big, and for some indie authors it doesn't even exist. Plus we have published authors who are going indie.

Every wave of indie author successes brings the Barbarians closer to burning down Rome. Rome fights back and kills a lot of Barbarians but the walls get weaker and the Roman army gets weary.

It won't be long before the walls are gone.

I'm sure that in the weeks and months before Rome finally fell, there were some Barbarian chieftains who sat around a fire and wept about how 'Rome always finds a way to beat us back' and 'we should go back to our Barbarian lands and their comforting embrace before Rome turns us into their slaves'.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

Even with all the discussion, I'm just not seeing it.

I know that Kris and Dean has been building a publishing house for their own books. This house earns enough to hire full time employees and still pay them money. I don't see how that translates into "lack of sales." Lack of sales on Amazon does not translate into lack of sales in all markets. Remember, they makes money off of paper sales as well as audiobooks, as well as reprints, in multiple markets.

If you've read Kris's posts, you know that she's thinking far beyond sales. She licenses her novels to other language markets. Through that, she's literally world-wide. Who translates your work? She has her finger in multiple genres, including non-fiction. Any of her markets could die and she already has a strategy for surviving that implosion. You know from Dean that they practice the magic pie copyright strategy, which means that they pursue income across a variety of mediums. Their strategy is to make hay, just like you, over and over again with the same books, to the the maximum long-term value out of a work. Think of it as write-once, profit often. No single market is huge, but taken together, the return is significant.

I could ding them for giving sales strategies that don't work well, but if I were to do that, then I would have to ding so many people here, too. I'd throw you all to the dogs. On the other hand, no one here has talked about how to farm out my books to translators, get film deals, or sell to magazines.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Douglas Milewski said:


> Even with all the discussion, I'm just not seeing it.
> 
> I know that Kris and Dean has been building a publishing house for their own books. This house earns enough to hire full time employees and still pay them money. I don't see how that translates into "lack of sales."


I don't know how they afford employees or from what revenue stream that money comes. Very possibly they afford it because people take their classes and pay money for instruction, not to mention donations to their blogs.

But revenue is revenue so whichever way they do it, kudos to them.

That doesn't change my opinion with regards to the strategy they teach about selling ebooks in the digital marketplace. My personal experience has been that they're dead wrong on quite a lot of it.

Do they make money? Sure, they must. But given the amount of work they produce, I'm certain they could probably make a hundred times what they're making now, if they would just optimize how they write, how they package, pricing, some smart but simple marketing strategies, funnels into series, etc.

The fact that they don't write smart is a big strike against them in my book.

It seems to me that they work extremely hard, much harder than they would need to if they actually rethought some of those bad strategies.

After writing at pulp speed for a couple of years and choosing what I wrote intelligently, I can now pace myself and do an hour or two of work a day and still make a killing (as I define it, I'll keep those numbers to myself). That's from writing and publishing with an eye on the market. Believe me or don't, I'm simply telling you why I think they're making some major mistakes.

Two writers with their level of output should be raking it in at the level of an HM Ward, Konrath, or any one of a thousand genre writers whose books are crushing on Amazon, B&N iTunes, etc. But Dean and KKR aren't doing that, not because of their work ethic, but because they choose very poor strategies for optimizing WHAT their output consists of.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Enron had employees, too   Having a couple of people on staff has nothing to do with the health of a company. A quick study of business will tell you that.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

I was just reading some material on Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing on Dean's website and came across this:

"I keep forgetting that indie writers these days are functioning in numbers that happen now. I still function in long term publishing thinking, meaning it takes ten years to build a decent career and longer to really learn how to write decent books."

I think this main principle of their ideology is where we disagree, and why I so strongly oppose much of their anti-trend, anti-cheap, anti-promoting philosophy.

They are looking at writing as a long game wherein you tend to ignore the current trends that come and go, and just focus on the work.  It's a nice sounding idea, and particularly for very new writers who don't have the craft or ability to write stuff that gets a lot of interest, it's probably a smart way to approach the business.  If you focus too much on sales numbers and money before you're ready for it, this could discourage your career.

However, for writers that are currently at the level of writing for a big audience--and even some beginners can do that if they work hard enough, are smart and talented and driven enough--then I think the "long game" mentality is a loser.

There's so much money to be made and readers to be found right now, at this SPECIFIC moment in publishing, and to overlook that and simply churn out lots of whatever you feel like churning out...it's not a smart way to build a career in the now.  Let me put it this way.  I already have a longer career of writing full-time then 99 percent of writers.  I don't need to teach classes or supplement my income either.

In point of fact, the business I've built in a few short years has given me the freedom to pretty much do what I want for the foreseeable future.  So I don't have to churn out books with my head down and wait for my career to start taking off in a decade.

Did I do a lot of writing before ebooks ever took off?  Yes, I was writing for years.  Still, if I had approached this new medium of ebooks the way Dean advocates, I would still be writing my horror and thrillers and humor books and stuck in first gear.

BTW: It does probably take ten or twenty years of writing to reach full potential or close to it, but even a new writer can pen a hit book.  As we've seen, many readers respond to story more than craft.  That doesn't mean improvements can't be made, but being new or green won't stop you from writing a story readers want.  Building a stable career takes maturity, and there are dangers, but Dean's mentality is way over focused on ignoring current market conditions, to the point of absurdity.


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## Lefevre (Feb 1, 2014)

Sorry to start another tangent..just wanted to thank the OP for posting this. Despite the length, it was a good screed.


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## Luis dA (Jun 1, 2014)

I think this is a healthful business discussion. The pulp-producing couple preach one strategy, gorvince and “NO cat” another (sorry, can’t find his/her symbols on my keyboard). We can become better informed this way to select a business strategy. I think gorvince and the cat, add greatly to the discussion because they help less experienced authors to question the methods of not only the gurus offering “ways to success workshops,” but any commonly held wisdom about indie publishing. 

One take away that’s striking from all the strategies is that it takes lots of hard work to succeed. Folks looking for secrets, cookie cutter solutions, shortcuts to strike it big (and that’s most folks) can only hope to get really lucky with their 327 pages of inspiration. Much of the success of these “old timers” comes from not only writing millions of words, but from understanding the business that they are in, and not, in getting lucky.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

I had a horrible nightmare that strategies that still work, even today, will no longer work in a year or so and we'll be scratching our heads and pining for the old days, when writing a long-running multi-book series that conforms to genre expectations and fits neatly into a familiar, clearly defined category, used to work to sell books.

Will *that* day ever come, I wonder.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Oh Dalya 

Gorvnice- yeah, I'd rather be working on selling what I have along with building more product (ie writing) than just writing. If I had thirty years of backlist, man. I'd be packaging and repackaging it to see how to best take advantage of the market now, for sure. That's what makes me so sad. KKR has several longer series and could rake in the monies and readers if she did things differently. Instead she does what DWS calls "bouncing along the bottom" and so they both have to talk about how low sales aren't so bad and it is all part of a 10 or 20 or whatever year plan.  But that ten years never seems to get shorter...

It is all well and good to say you have a ten year plan. If, six years in, you still have a ten year plan... there might be a problem with the way you look at time. 

I choose to live in the now and deal with how things are in the present, not in the past or in some future that I can't see. I figure as long as I stay on top of what the business is doing NOW, when the future turns into NOW, I'll be okay. My "ten years from now" will become just "today" in the way that time does that, and won't be a moving target because I'm not aiming at something I can't see.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

ㅈㅈ said:


> Oh Dalya
> ....
> 
> I choose to live in the now and deal with how things are in the present, not in the past or in some future that I can't see. I figure as long as I stay on top of what the business is doing NOW, when the future turns into NOW, I'll be okay. My "ten years from now" will become just "today" in the way that time does that, and won't be a moving target because I'm not aiming at something I can't see.


I'm totally serious that I really *did* have that nightmare. It was good, though. By imagining a dark mega-pocalypse future where even a sound business strategy doesn't work, I was able to appreciate the opportunities we do have right now, and feel a bit more motivated about powering forward with my current plans.

For the last few years, I've published about half a million words per year. I've had a few lucky breaks, but only when I jumped onto trends. If not for the trend-jumping, I would have probably quit way back in 2012.

Anyway, I'm scared of investing a significant amount of time and energy into a long-term plan that has no guarantee. Jumping onto a current trend and riding it out is so tempting... yet it doesn't get you anywhere in a year or whatever when the trend is gone.

Hmmmm.... end-of-year deep thoughts.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Oh, I also had a dream that I had a production company and was making porn in my basement.

I think I should lay off the weird food combinations before I go to bed. No more garlic sausage and maple syrup candy.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

dalya said:


> By imagining a dark mega-pocalypse future where even a sound business strategy doesn't work, I was able to appreciate the opportunities we do have right now, and feel a bit more motivated about powering forward with my current plans.
> 
> For the last few years, I've published about half a million words per year. I've had a few lucky breaks, but only when I jumped onto trends. If not for the trend-jumping, I would have probably quit way back in 2012.


Writers who want to succeed need to read stuff like this, need to understand that it's actually okay to try and ride a trend.

DWS and KKR need to kill their own sacred cows, like the notion that it's a waste of time to write to trend or try and ply your trade in a hot genre.

Sure, when the wave dies out, you need to go search for another. Someday, there might not be another, it might not work anymore. And then what do you do? Then, and only then, you put your head down and plod forward, just like Dean and Kris suggest. You put one foot in front of the other and churn out volume, and you sell the best you can and write as much as humanly possible.

But me&#8230;oh hold on, I just spotted a big wave, gotta run!


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

ㅈㅈ said:


> KKR has several longer series and could rake in the monies and readers if she did things differently. Instead she does what DWS calls "bouncing along the bottom" and so they both have to talk about how low sales aren't so bad and it is all part of a 10 or 20 or whatever year plan. But that ten years never seems to get shorter...
> 
> It is all well and good to say you have a ten year plan. If, six years in, you still have a ten year plan... there might be a problem with the way you look at time.
> 
> I choose to live in the now and deal with how things are in the present, not in the past or in some future that I can't see. I figure as long as I stay on top of what the business is doing NOW, when the future turns into NOW, I'll be okay. My "ten years from now" will become just "today" in the way that time does that, and won't be a moving target because I'm not aiming at something I can't see.


Spot on. 
Just because you have a 10 year plan doesn't mean you can't make money now. 
Fact is, none of us know what the indie publishing landscape will look like next year, no less 10 years from now. 
3 years ago, there was a KDP select gold rush going on that has gone kaput. 8 months ago, the KU apocalypse hadn't laid siege to writer's sales like a napalm-breathing dragon. 
The time to make money is now before another tectonic shift swallows up those wacky bear shifters and shirtless navy seals.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

gorvnice said:


> Writers who want to succeed need to read stuff like this, need to understand that it's actually okay to try and ride a trend.
> 
> DWS and KKR need to kill their own sacred cows, like the notion that it's a waste of time to write to trend or try and ply your trade in a hot genre.
> 
> ...


Well, if you like money, you don't try to hit the road in your beat-up tour bus and talk up the benefits of bronze during a gold rush.

I feel like so much of the time-wasting social media and platform-building and quests to understand algorithms and secret pricing tips and the best advertisers... is all really about trying to talk up the benefits of bronze because you like bronze and you want to get up and make coffee and think about bronze, as opposed to describing sexual intercourse for the tenth time that week.

Oops, mixed my metaphors there. Freudian slip?



lacymarankevinmichael said:


> Spot on.
> Just because you have a 10 year plan doesn't mean you can't make money now.
> Fact is, none of us know what the indie publishing landscape will look like next year, no less 10 years from now.
> 3 years ago, there was a KDP select gold rush going on that has gone kaput. 8 months ago, the KU apocalypse hadn't laid siege to writer's sales like a napalm-breathing dragon.
> The time to make money is now before another tectonic shift swallows up those wacky bear shifters and shirtless navy seals.


It's true. The time is now. Project yourself forward and imagine looking back on now, at the opportunities we have. 

I'm reminded of the marshmallow test, where they ask kids to not eat the marshmallows now so they can get double in the future.

I do see some parallels in trend-chasing publishing.

I'm lucky to have some good friends to talk me off the ledge.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

dalya said:


> Well, if you like money, you don't try to hit the road in your beat-up tour bus and talk up the benefits of bronze during a gold rush.
> 
> I feel like so much of the time-wasting social media and platform-building and quests to understand algorithms and secret pricing tips and the best advertisers... is all really about trying to talk up the benefits of bronze because you like bronze and you want to get up and make coffee and think about bronze, as opposed to describing sexual intercourse for the tenth time that week.
> 
> ...


Hey Dalya, I'm slightly confused by what you've written. Seems kind of like riddles to me. Are you saying that talking about this stuff on kboards is wasting time when I could be writing my next big book?

And as far as "trend chasing," imo it works for me and I don't mind saying that. For those who are still trying to figure out how to make money at this game, I don't mind throwing out a tip or two. But honestly, most writers simply don't know how to do it right, so they try and ride the wave of a new trend and it doesn't work.

Finding the right market, the right niche, is an art, not a science. And it takes skill and perseverance and the willingness to take risks and fail, as well as write very, very fast and clean


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## Guest (Dec 25, 2014)

Yeah, you kind of lost me with the bronze thing, Dalya.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

gorvnice said:


> Hey Dalya, I'm slightly confused by what you've written. Seems kind of like riddles to me. Are you saying that talking about this stuff on kboards is wasting time when I could be writing my next big book?
> 
> And as far as "trend chasing," imo it works for me and I don't mind saying that. For those who are still trying to figure out how to make money at this game, I don't mind throwing out a tip or two. But honestly, most writers simply don't know how to do it right, so they try and ride the wave of a new trend and it doesn't work.
> 
> Finding the right market, the right niche, is an art, not a science. And it takes skill and perseverance and the willingness to take risks and fail, as well as write very, very fast and clean


No, I don't think it's a waste of time to talk to other authors and publishers. It's enjoyable, and there is information to be gleaned, plus friendships with other authors/readers/unicorns is one of the best perks to being an author.

When it comes to growing, I guess the real trick is being able to see the truth. Possibly one of the biggest obstacles (besides the dreaded writer's clock and the shortness of a 24-hour day) is our own confirmation bias, a.k.a. seeing what we want to believe to be true. Every single piece of advice can be medicine for one person and poison for another, depending on what the advice is being applied to. It's hard sometimes to get into specifics on places like this message board, because specificity seems to draw out the argumentative. For example, I could post a 2,000 word summary of my advice in publishing, and if I use the word "outline" somewhere in the post, a few people might ignore the entire post and start a war over outlining vs pantsing, or point to an outlier who doesn't fit an example, or whatever.

People who do that are not unlike me, a person who got a low score last night for "agreeableness" on the Big 5 personality test in this month's National Geographic. *shocker!*

So, sorry if if seems like I am being vague. I'm really just sharing my personal experiences. I don't passive-aggressively post about things I think other people should be doing. I'm mostly into talking about my own experiences and listening to others, not talking about others' experiences.



Joe Vasicek said:


> Yeah, you kind of lost me with the bronze thing, Dalya.


Hey, mixed metaphors and absurdist comedy stylings aren't for everyone.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

dalya said:


> No, I don't think it's a waste of time to talk to other authors and publishers. It's enjoyable, and there is information to be gleaned, plus friendships with other authors/readers/unicorns is one of the best perks to being an author.
> 
> When it comes to growing, I guess the real trick is being able to see the truth.
> So, sorry if if seems like I am being vague. I'm really just sharing my personal experiences. I don't passive-aggressively post about things I think other people should be doing. I'm mostly into talking about my own experiences and listening to others, not talking about others' experiences.
> ...


No worries at all, I got that you were being humorous, but I also sensed you were making a point, and I wanted to understand your point correctly so as not to respond to something you weren't saying.

As for seeing truth, yeah--it's a relative thing, and it changes all the time seemingly 

I'm not going to say I'm comfortable with how things keep evolving despite my best intentions to keep everything the same, just the way I like it--but I do accept that things continue to move and twist and turn. What works for me will not work for the person next to me, perhaps.

Like you said, mention outlines and I'll be the first one to tell you I don't do it. Sometimes I sketch a rough scene list with some general ideas, but I don't much like detailed outlining. I accept it works for some very good writers, just not me.

In general, if someone wants to make money and wants to write doing it in the current market--I advise them to be as fast as possible and as good as possible. There's plenty of time for outlining, if that's your thing, although it may slow you down. There's plenty of time for beta readers and editors, but it may slow you down. There's plenty of time for someone to make your covers, but it may slow you down.

So you see, everything has a risk/benefit to it, and everyone figures out a process they feel okay with.

I'm really happy with my process and don't mind sharing some of that with others, but honestly, I don't care if people do what I do or not. Most writers won't listen to me anyway, and I accept that too.

This isn't a gold rush anymore, if it ever was one. There's plenty of money being made, plenty to be made, plenty that's already been made. If it all ends tomorrow, I'll definitely be sad, but I'll dust myself off and find a way to do something that excites me.

At least that's the plan for now.

But the way things are going currently, I intend to stick to doing what I've been doing since 2011. Studying the market, watching what successful authors are doing--as good as I'm doing, I can see literally dozens if not hundreds of other authors doing better than me every single day in terms of sales numbers. So I need to keep watching and learning.

And then I read a new book or watch a great TV show like Madmen and I think how much better my writing can still get, and it makes me happy.

If trend chasing doesn't work for someone, then don't do it! But many people don't even try, they just parrot stuff cuz they don't WANT to do it. So don't do it then. 

But don't tell me it doesn't work, kids, because I know it works. And if that's a big secret than I guess I let the cat out of the bag here.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

People say they leave emotion out of it. That it's just business. That they adapt.

But then when they are given information and idea, it still comes down to cognitive dissonance is in this thread. If the information supports that you already want to be the truth, then it's great and thoughtful and should not be examined closer. If it does not support it, then it's time to examine... the source and find ways to tear them down--while the information should not be examined closer.

Either way,t he actual information never gets examined closer because doing otherwise wouldn't preserve inertia. Only when something devastating, that can't be tucked away happens, does this ever change.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

gorvnice said:


> ....
> If trend chasing doesn't work for someone, then don't do it! But many people don't even try, they just parrot stuff cuz they don't WANT to do it. So don't do it then.
> 
> But don't tell me it doesn't work, kids, because I know it works. And if that's a big secret than I guess I let the cat out of the bag here.


***POINTS FINGER***

LOL

People really get so shirty about the whole outline thing, though, eh? I suspect some pantsers are just good at keeping things organized in their heads. Me, though, I can't go to the grocery store without a list, or I get too distracted.

And when I'm writing a romance, I always have to write myself a Post-It note that says: Spoiler alert, they get together in the end! or I'm liable to forget.*

*Not really.


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

For the record, I am a long-time KKR/DWS nay-sayer when it comes to their market posts (craft, writing, and KKR's freelancer's survival guide are a different story). 

I do sometimes point to their sales to explain why I disagree with them. I don't do it because I think you need stellar sales to have an opinion. I do it because they consistently say, "Don't do X! X doesn't work!" and I feel that if you're going to say that, you need to have at a minimum some kind of answer for the anecdotal answers of many, many others who have demonstrated that in fact, X works. Those of us who care about data, and who are trying to figure out in general terms what strategies can sometimes be effective, are going to look at available records.

The truth is, I just can't point to a huge number of people who have taken KKR's advice with regard to marketing and been successful, and I don't know who is following their advice since people don't often announce strategy, and so the primary exhibits as to the success of their methods ends up being themselves.

We can point to dozens and dozens of other people who use certain methods and so we don't end up having to single them out. We know that Bookbub can work. We know that a 99 cent intro or permafree can work. We have proof. Lots of it.

The discussion of KKR/DWS's sales is not about "KKR and DWS suck as people because their sales aren't good and so nobody should ever listen to them." 

It's about, "they have made an argument and we need to evaluate the argument in light of all available data, and the data about their book sales is the best we can find regarding their strategy."

I don't care if your sales suck--if you can point to evidence that your strategy works, even if you are not implementing that strategy, I will listen to you, and I think most people on kBoards will consider what you're saying. But if you trumpet a strategy and you're the only one in the world who openly adopts that strategy, you're the only place we can go to to judge the efficacy of the strategy.

In other words, I don't care if you can do a handstand, but if you're going to coach gymnastics, you have to prove that your method gets at least one person to handstand level.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Courtney Milan said:


> In other words, I don't care if you can do a handstand, but if you're going to coach gymnastics, you have to prove that your method gets at least one person to handstand level.


AMEN.
And can I just say, I'm pretty happy that this thread has gotten some discussion going with a few of the business people that I think can really help both myself and others to learn more about writing and publishing as it stands right now?

For me, it's fun. I like these discussions.  Don't agree, challenge away, talk about different strategies and methods. That's how I learn, that's why I finally bit the bullet and did a freebie, paid for a few ads, got on Facebook--all the things I didn't do for the first couple years because I thought they were unnecessary.

I'm open to just about everything&#8230;except outlining, that is.


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

The ultimate conclusion of the article is the survivors will be those who are doing what they love, but here's the thing -- I think a lot of indies love both writing _and_ figuring out how to sell that writing. Publishing well involves solving two huge puzzles: a) what do readers want?, and b) how do you reach them?

The drive to solve those puzzles is what pushes so many of us to fool around with anything and everything that might help us solve them. For instance, people who are chasing trends are attempting to solve b) (reaching readers) by identifying momentary, hyper-specific forms of a) (what readers want).

There's a fair argument that, once those trends dry up in six months or a year, your success may dry up with it... but if there's one thing I've learned about publishing, it's that if you can find a way to pry open a window and find some real fans, it makes it So. Much. Easier. to launch everything else that you write.

Anyway, if the secret ingredient to long-term success is love of what you're doing, and you have the love to keep learning and experimenting relentlessly -- including with methods others deride -- I think you're gonna be well-positioned to survive no matter how things change.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Anyway, if the secret ingredient to long-term success is love of what you're doing, and you have the love to keep learning and experimenting relentlessly -- including with methods others deride -- I think you're gonna be well-positioned to survive no matter how things change.


Agreed. Who says it has to be a chore to change genres or write to trend? That's just another myth, another sacred cow to move past&#8230;

I love writing what I'm writing right now as much as--or more than--anything I ever wrote. And the stuff I'm writing now is specifically in genres that give me my best chances of success. I didn't pick them because I'm a fan of the genre or always read it or grew up wanting to write this stuff.

But I still love it. I love writing, I love telling stories and I don't much care what kind of story it is. The challenge is to make it fun, make it my own while still playing by the rules! That's what keeps this whole thing interesting.


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## Someone (Dec 30, 2011)

> but here's the thing -- I think a lot of indies love both writing and figuring out how to sell that writing.


Ed, when you said that, it was one of those well-duh moments. It's a statement that is so obvious but, OTOH, is a statement hasn't been said or hasn't been so succinctly said. There is so much truth to it and, when these but-you-aren;t-doing-what-you-love refutes are interjected and I know that I am doing what I love but can't quite articulate why, this is what needs to be said. For me, it is just as much about the enjoyment of knowing I figured out the market as it is entertaining the market. You are right Edward; I enjoy figuring out what kind of story people want to hear and then telling them that kind of story. You nailed what it is, 'nuff said. Thank you for saying what we all know and do but we don't realize we know and do.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> The ultimate conclusion of the article is the survivors will be those who are doing what they love, but here's the thing -- I think a lot of indies love both writing _and_ figuring out how to sell that writing. Publishing well involves solving two huge puzzles: a) what do readers want?, and b) how do you reach them?
> ...


I think readers want more of what's already popular, and they're happy to get the indie version because it's usually cheaper and the books are released more frequently. For example, Stephanie Plum is very popular, so you'll see a lot of popular mystery series in that vein. Some of the more popular ones will have a ton of 5 stars praising how similar the series is to Plum, and a smattering of 1 stars complaining about how similar it is to Plum.

If you spend time looking closely at a subgenre, you'll find the few series that people don't praise/criticize for being similar to other things are kinda hard to find because the books aren't exactly on the top 100 charts. Now, a few are, sure. But those series have a tougher row to hoe... they might have a higher ceiling in the long term, but they're not as quick to get off the ground in the first few releases.

The thing about writers is, at least with the ones I know, they're very creative people, and they don't want to do a knock-off copycat series of a popular franchise, even if it is the fastest route to tapping into an existing fanbase.

And that is one of the big conundrums many of us face: how original do we dare to be? (Assuming we even *are* half as original as we like to see ourselves, LOL.)

Do we take today's marshmallow or wait and maybe get 2 tomorrow, assuming Bezos hasn't decided to unleash the next plague of marshmallow-eating drones or whatever.

P.S. Pay no attention to the readers who say they are "sick of" certain tropes. They're only "sick of" them because they keep buying and reading them. There are plenty of other genres to read if a person is "sick of" tropes and cliches in one genre, and heaven knows there's no shortage of startlingly original material out there to choose from... often with a six or seven-digit rank.


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## Someone (Dec 30, 2011)

> The thing about writers is, at least with the ones I know, they're very creative people, and they don't want to do a knock-off copycat series of a popular franchise, even if it is the fastest route to tapping into an existing fanbase. And that is one of the big conundrums many of us face: how original do we dare to be? (Assuming we even *are* half as original as we like to see ourselves, LOL.)


But it doesn't have to be a take character X, rewrite them, and name them Y knock-off. I've done very well with using the trend - or maybe the setting/atmosphere/hard to describe - and applying my own thing to it. IMO one has a lot of creative latitude as long as they stay true to the trope. You violate the trope - ie have the heroine clunk the hero with the egg pan in the head, inadvertently killing him or worse - egads - causing him to have surgery that permanently deforms his chiseled jaw - and you gonna have some problems. 

Wanna say one more thing. 
Dayla, I've long lurked Kboards and have always enjoyed you. Always. I remember the days that were tough for you and cursed them all. I am so happy to see how well you are doing now. You have a very entertaining, creative, fun way of expressing things and it would have been a true shame if, because of circumstance, the market didn't tell you that. Rock on and not with a bronze guitar. Rock on with a gold one.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

dalya said:


> The thing about writers is, at least with the ones I know, they're very creative people, and they don't want to do a knock-off copycat series of a popular franchise, even if it is the fastest route to tapping into an existing fanbase.
> 
> And that is one of the big conundrums many of us face: how original do we dare to be? (Assuming we even *are* half as original as we like to see ourselves, LOL.)
> 
> ...


I like your entire post, and there's a lot in it. But I will say that, from my perspective, you don't have to make a knock off that's just a pale imitation of someone else's work. If I do what you might refer to as a knock off, I do it by hitting the main points I think the readers want, while still tweaking the formula in my own unique way. It's a tightrope that I personally find fun to walk.

So I think that if you look at writing on-trend or trying to do a book or series that's in the same wheelhouse as something else--I don't look at it as some stale phoning it in kind of thing. I am still trying to work on a high level, to create something alive, vibrant, and that will transport the reader.

As for the idea that you get the second marshmallow by being so original and "true to yourself," I am pretty certain that I got both marshmallows already when I hit the wave I hit. And I was writing something people might have considered a knock-off, but it didn't mean that I made less money.

No, I'd say I made far, far more money than I would have trying to be Mr. Originality Pants and waiting, waiting, waiting for my train to come in...


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Someone said:


> But it doesn't have to be a take character X, rewrite them, and name them Y knock-off. I've done very well with using the trend - or maybe the setting/atmosphere/hard to describe - and applying my own thing to it.


We cross-posted and basically said the same thing&#8230;

People definitely misunderstand (not Dalya mind you, but some folks) the whole idea of writing to trend as simply being unoriginal and lame. That's a really big discrepancy because I don't see it that way at all.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Someone said:


> ...
> Wanna say one more thing.
> Dayla, I've long lurked Kboards and have always enjoyed you. Always. I remember the days that were tough for you and cursed them all. I am so happy to see how well you are doing now. You have a very entertaining, creative, fun way of expressing things and it would have been a true shame if, because of circumstance, the market didn't tell you that. Rock on and not with a bronze guitar but with a gold one.


Hey, thanks! The first half of 2014 was awesome for me, sales-wise. I'm glad I had some great months before the KUpocalypse. There are always so many ups and downs. Once you figure out one thing, then you have new things to figure out.  I'm very grateful for what I've learned. I'm happy to see the whole industry evolving, and the indie authors figuring things out. Of course, the downside is it gets more difficult every day for a new person to break in, because the competition is getting smarter every day. That part of KKR's post, I totally agree with. In fact, I agree with about 80% of her post, and she makes a lot of excellent points.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

ricola said:


> No. It doesn't. They're averaging $100 per book per year across their list.
> 
> Yes, they sell classes about selling books. Unfortunately, they don't actually sell any, you know, BOOKS.


Still, if you have a hundred books on your list, averaging $100 per book per year is not bad, and if you have 500 on your list, we'll that's actually pretty good income. That in a nutshell is the KKR logic of writing as much as possible, and keeping your prices in general as high as possible, and not spending money on ads. Obviously, it's not the only way. But it has a consistency and a logic.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> I'll be the voice of dissent, but you don't have to write what you love to be successful. You don't even need to love what you write. You just need to find a profitable market and write to them.
> If you write in a hot trend that dries up, a new hot trend will develop that you can hop on.
> Sometimes writers get too precious.
> If you do happen to love what you write and are successful, congratulations. Loving what you write is far from a prerequisite for success however.
> The KU apocalypse is desperate times. Sometimes that calls for desperate measures.


I'm going to be disagreeable and AGREE WITH YOU LMKetc.

I often repeat this little mantra: Love What You Write. Pick something to write, then show it the love.


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## No longer seen (Aug 17, 2013)

This is one of the best threads I've read here in a long time.

Thanks to Kris for inspiring/inciting it, the OP for bringing it up, and everybody who's contributed.

I'll say that my attitude is you shouldn't write stuff you don't like, but "stuff" is not defined as a genre or subgenre. 
Writers should be studying and learning from all genres. Even if you don't "like" genre X. Write good 
genre X that you like.

Besides, in my view, as fiction writers we're functionally schizoprenic. If you personally don't like hot genre Y, 
create a part of your personality that DOES like it, figure out its appeal to its readers, and write as that
part of your personality that does like hot genre Y. 

I do have one question for the Siamese cat who personally knows KKR and DWS. Not in this thread, but 
somewhere on Kboards, you once mentioned they say writers should NOT post links to a mailing list
in the backs of their books, nor list links to other titles in the backmatter.

I've read a lot of their stuff and taken some of their classes, though not their Promotion workshop, and
I don't recall hearing that. Where do they say that?

I ask because although I've been deficient at many forms of marketing, I've at least accepted those
two things as too obvious to skip. And, until I read you say that, I had no idea I was doing something
they advise against.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

gorvnice said:


> I'm open to just about everything...except outlining, that is.


I agree 100% about that.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Richard Stooker said:


> This is one of the best threads I've read here in a long time.
> 
> Thanks to Kris for inspiring/inciting it, the OP for bringing it up, and everybody who's contributed.
> 
> ...


They don't say that about mailing lists or links. They say that about calling to action for reviews, because DWS considers asking readers for reviews in the back of your book "begging" and silly. Even though people have shown it works. But they don't believe much in reader reviews anyway and in my experience with them are pretty dismissive of individual reader opinions. So... who knows.  They don't seem to have robust mailing lists, so I imagine they don't see the value in them the way someone with a couple thousand people to mail would see the value. I will add that I have heard Dean say that he thinks sending out a mailing to your list more than once every now and again is spamming, which is something that many marketing gurus have totally shown to be not true. The actual data says at least twice a month is best.


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## No longer seen (Aug 17, 2013)

No Cat said:


> They don't say that about mailing lists or links. They say that about calling to action for reviews, because DWS considers asking readers for reviews in the back of your book "begging" and silly. Even though people have shown it works. But they don't believe much in reader reviews anyway and in my experience with them are pretty dismissive of individual reader opinions. So... who knows.  They don't seem to have robust mailing lists, so I imagine they don't see the value in them the way someone with a couple thousand people to mail would see the value. I will add that I have heard Dean say that he thinks sending out a mailing to your list more than once every now and again is spamming, which is something that many marketing gurus have totally shown to be not true. The actual data says at least twice a month is best.


Then I misremembered. Thanks for the clarification. I did at least get the location (book backmatter) right.

I see from her blog that Kris has started a mailing list. It could be improved - the signup form is at the bottom,
and she has a lot of posts at the front, so I'm sure many people don't even see it. And I don't know whether
she's adding a signup form to her books.

But at least it's a start.


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## elalond (May 11, 2011)

Going through this thread was a great read and quite educational. I love Kris's business posts. i don't always agree with them, but I always think that they are worth reading and they always manage to make me think, the same as did the comments in this thread.


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## Jarrett Rush (Jun 19, 2010)

gorvnice said:


> But honestly, most writers simply don't know how to do it right, so they try and ride the wave of a new trend and it doesn't work.
> 
> Finding the right market, the right niche, is an art, not a science. And it takes skill and perseverance and the willingness to take risks and fail, as well as write very, very fast and clean


I know asking this question will sound like I'm trying to provoke something, but I'm not trying to. I'm genuinely curious. What's the right way to chase trends and what's the wrong way. And if that needs to be answered in PM because it'd be hijacking the thread, I understand.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Jarrett Rush said:


> I know asking this question will sound like I'm trying to provoke something, but I'm not trying to. I'm genuinely curious. What's the right way to chase trends and what's the wrong way. And if that needs to be answered in PM because it'd be hijacking the thread, I understand.


It's not a thread hijack, imo. I don't even remember what this thread was about anymore 

Anyway, I'd say we could write a book on this subject, but the simplest answer I would give, is that the right way to chase a trend is more akin to catching a wave when you're surfing. You go out, swim around, familiarize yourself with the territory. Look for the danger spots, where the reef is, where you might get hurt. And then you wait for what looks like a promising wave that's starting, and you swim for it and try and catch it just right.

If we break off from that analogy, the way most writers fail at "trend chasing" is that they look down on it. They feel they're lowering themselves, they sneer at the very act of doing this.  So many who try, are already being dishonest with themselves about their own distaste for this activity. You can't succeed at something you refuse to even respect.

It's not EASY to do this. In fact, I would argue that it's one of the hardest things to do as a writer. But there's a lot of invisible difficulty to this. It's not that your writing has to be stellar, because it doesn't.

You need to be a chameleon, capable of changing and morphing to fit any genre, any niche, any style. You need to know when to stay within the confines of the genre, when to adhere to tropes, and when you can stray. You need to have confidence and be fast and take risks.

Those are the right things to BE to be successful at studying the market and responding to it. You need to watch other writers in the hot genres and really appreciate how and why they do what they do, noticing every single detail possible.

There's a lot more to it, but that's a start anyway...


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## Luis dA (Jun 1, 2014)

I think that it might be unfair to be critical of any of the strategies offered in this thread, without first establishing what the purpose of the author’s writing is in the first place. I think everyone wants more readers than fewer readers; however, maximized income per book, may not be the paramount measure of success for all writers. 

I think this is the case for writers whose strategy is to publish often, on the order of bi-monthly, say. There are exceptions, but the writing and presentation quality of books on such a schedule is generally compromised. Let me repeat, there are exceptionally talented exceptions to this bold statement, but it’s not called pulp fiction for nothing, and such writing isn’t new. Such books were called dime novels (99 cents today?) two generations ago. The business expectations for such books was to make enough money to cover costs and a reasonable profit to allow the publisher to remain in business and the author to make a living. As a business, the idea was to also tempt the reader to sample other books on the publisher’s shelf. I realize that this likely states the obvious by this point in the thread. 

This approach’s alternative is to publish a masterwork every one or two years. Typically, such books when written by writers equally talented as the writers who can write “fast and clean,” may see comparable income with fewer books. To be sure, this approach is riskier than the first. It’s up to each writer to select their approach based on whatever factors suit their desires, goals, and talents. 

I find it interesting to see many books published a year or two earlier showing hundreds of reviews (which means that they sold many thousands of copies during a stretch), and based on their present Amazon rank, be selling a book or two per day. I wonder if this is a phenomenon of “publishing often” or the pulp fiction business model, or the nature of most publishing now for well-received books. I do believe that high quality non-pulp books that are well-received, stand a better chance of maintaining better longer term sales. If this is so, then it might be possible for both approaches to even out financially, and it becomes a question of which approach you choose—even when income maximization is not the principle motivator of why you chose to write. 

As discussed in the thread, why you choose one approach over another is likely based on your strengths, misconceptions, or your understanding of the publishing business as it exists at a particular time. Knowing this, I think is what the main posters to this thread are trying to impress on folks, that is, know why the hell you’re doing what you’re doing. Choose a strategy with determination. Change it if it’s not proving successful for what you discover about your market or yourself.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Jarrett Rush said:


> I know asking this question will sound like I'm trying to provoke something, but I'm not trying to. I'm genuinely curious. What's the right way to chase trends and what's the wrong way. And if that needs to be answered in PM because it'd be hijacking the thread, I understand.


Govr answered, but I'll throw in as well!

Firstly, you do need speed. If it takes a year to produce a book, the trend could already be over by the time you're done, and it might take multiple books to get rolling in your endeavour.

Other tips:
- People who've found a goldmine don't usually go around telling others about it or encouraging them into their genre. In other words, you can ask people on here what's hot right now, but I don't think you'll get what you're looking for.
- Reading hot books helps, of course, but it's more helpful to be able to analyse them so you know which elements are critical. It can help here to have a partner to discuss the books with, and maybe they read some for research and split the workload.
- If you figure out the things that are common to all the trends and subgenres, this will help you in your writing career forever. These secrets may be found inside some craft books, but not every craft book. One great book is this one: http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Worlds-Bestselling-Writer-Storytelling-ebook/dp/B00OQ6XDHQ

Now, if you just looked at that link and decided not to buy it because of the $9 price tag, yet you can afford $9 for other things in life, this demonstrates the weird penny-wise-pound-foolish trait some of us have. We'll spend hundreds of hours working on a book that might not sell anything, pay good money to travel to conferences and pitch to agents and editors, yet we would balk at buying a $9 craft book that a self-publisher who sold 200,000 books in 2014 recommends as containing The Secrets? Gotta mull that one over...


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

And the great thing about indie publishing is that you can choose both approaches too, and even forge more of your own choosing.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

dalya said:


> Now, if you just looked at that link and decided not to buy it because of the $9 price tag, yet you can afford $9 for other things in life, this demonstrates the weird penny-wise-pound-foolish trait some of us have. We'll spend hundreds of hours working on a book that might not sell anything, pay good money to travel to conferences and pitch to agents and editors, yet we would balk at buying a $9 craft book that a self-publisher who sold 200,000 books in 2014 recommends as containing The Secrets? Gotta mull that one over...


I second this craft book. Also, thumbs up to any writer who has unicorn farting out rainbows as an avatar.
The right way to capitalize on chasing trends is to start writing Urban Romance right now, and a lot of it. It's just starting to find its way into the top 100.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

dalya said:


> Oh, I also had a dream that I had a production company and was making porn in my basement.


If it was called Public **** America, we are mind-melding, my friend. 

LOL... yeah, this is the trend I'm chasing.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

And since I broke silence and commented, I might as well let some of you in on the fact that DWS et al, have secret pen names. I mean, you DO realize that, right?

I took one of his classes back in early 2013. Very next book was the break-through. I've been working hard ever since, I might even have had a break-out - it's hard to tell from my end, though, and while they don't all make the Top 100, they always make Top 200, regardless of price or promotion.  DWS helped me do that with one six-week class. Sometimes you just need someone who "knows" to spell it out for you in simple terms. 

I'm signed up for two more classes in January. Do I need them? Maybe, maybe not. But screw it. They are a tax write off and I certainly can't go wrong by listening to someone more experienced than me talk about, well, you know, their experiences.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

JanneCO said:


> I'm signed up for two more classes in January. Do I need them? Maybe, maybe not. But screw it. They are a tax write off and I certainly can't go wrong by listening to someone more experienced than me talk about, well, you know, their experiences.


I'm taking their Productivity workshop now and will be taking one of the craft workshops in January. They may or may not have sales, but their insights and education have been invaluable to me.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

There are no more secret pen names for them. I would caution it is best not to trust everything they say.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

JanneCO said:


> And since I broke silence and commented, I might as well let some of you in on the fact that DWS et al, have secret pen names. I mean, you DO realize that, right?
> ***
> I'm signed up for two more classes in January. Do I need them? Maybe, maybe not. But screw it. They are a tax write off and I certainly can't go wrong by listening to someone more experienced than me talk about, well, you know, their experiences.


Two points. Firstly, are they using different strategies on these pen names than what they publicize via their blogs and books?

And two, I agree it's helpful to seek out those with more experience. And I've stated, as have others, on numerous occasions--that Dean's craft advice and a lot of what he says about production and writing are very valuable.

But if they are giving out bad advice, regardless of pen names, about how to sell ebooks in the current climate--it's bad advice. I'm criticizing their "current market" advice that contradicts quite a lot of very experienced and successful self-published authors. I'm not saying that everything they advise is BS, but I am saying that large chunks of it don't at all fit with common wisdom or even logic.

You haven't, as of yet, stated where any of there advice that's been criticized here has actually worked for you specifically.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I would also clarify that I think their business advice is bad. When it comes to craft, KKR knows her stuff. The Character Voice workshop was the best one I ever took.

But KKR's post under discussion is about indie publishing, not indie crafting. And many of her conclusions and ideas in that post are things that I have found to be poor business advice in regard to how things actually work for successful indie authors. So that's what I was pointing out and what I take issue with. If you are going to sell business advice and business-oriented workshops, I think it is totally relevant to have your business practices and your own results scrutinized.

Craft side, I got no issue with KKR. She's a great writer. I am sad she doesn't have the business down so that she can reach a real audience these days. As I said, if she took her series and actually branded them properly for genre, priced them down a bit, made the first books into funnels, paid attention to keywording etc, had calls to action for reviews and actually utilized and pushed her mailing list? She'd be rich.  Ego can be a crippling thing


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

Maybe their super sercret plan is to give bad marketing advice to mislead the competition while using different tactics on their sekret pen names. It's evil. It's brilliant.

note: I don't really think they're doing this.

Sadly.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

JanneCO said:


> And since I broke silence and commented, I might as well let some of you in on the fact that DWS et al, have secret pen names. I mean, you DO realize that, right?
> 
> I took one of his classes back in early 2013. Very next book was the break-through. I've been working hard ever since, I might even have had a break-out - it's hard to tell from my end, though, and while they don't all make the Top 100, they always make Top 200, regardless of price or promotion. DWS helped me do that with one six-week class. Sometimes you just need someone who "knows" to spell it out for you in simple terms.
> 
> I'm signed up for two more classes in January. Do I need them? Maybe, maybe not. But screw it. They are a tax write off and I certainly can't go wrong by listening to someone more experienced than me talk about, well, you know, their experiences.


BTW, if you're who I think you are, you've done incredibly well in this business. Only, I'm 99.9 percent sure you do a lot of the stuff that DWS and KKR say specifically not to do on the business/sales side of things.

So even though you've clearly benefited from their workshops, if you're not following their major pieces of advice in terms of pricing/marketing/promotions than I don't quite get where you're coming from on this.


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## Z. Rider (Aug 15, 2014)

Jim Johnson said:


> And the great thing about indie publishing is that you can choose both approaches too, and even forge more of your own choosing.


That's one of my favorite things about it. With trade publishing, there are pretty much two paths: agent to large (or small) publisher, or direct to small publisher, and whether you write to market or write to the beat of your own drummer, _readers_ don't get access to your stuff until/unless a publisher puts it out. With indie, you get to decide your own path, write your own plan, set your own goalposts, and reach out to the readers who are looking for the stories you tell. It's up to you whether you want to chase trends, discover trends, create trends, nestle down in a niche, or create a niche. No one is barring the way, and no one's going to prevent your book from being available to readers just because they "can't see how to market it."

On the other hand, the work is on us to figure out how to market our stuff. An easy path to marketing is, of course, to write what people are already looking for and put it where they're looking. (Easy, that is, if you're willing & able to write what people are looking for. I _could_, but I already work forty hours a week doing what other people want me to do; I'm a bit more selfish with the other forty hours I spend on my writing/marketing.) I'm hoping it's possible to make a living wage on the stories I want to write if I'm willing to invest time and money on getting it in front of people. If it doesn't work out, I'll resign myself to keeping my day job, and an expensive but very enjoyable and satisfying full-time hobby on top of it. It's not like I have anything I'd rather be doing with my time...

As for KKR's posts...I've read many of her business posts. I take what's useful, toss the rest. There's been enough useful stuff that I keep reading her posts. I'm the opposite to other people's feelings when it comes to her and DWS's advice on craft, though. I haven't read KKR's fiction, but I've read DWS's, and the day I did, I stopped reading any of his posts on craft. (I'm not saying he's a bad writer; I assume he's accomplishing what he means to. It's just not what I mean to accomplish, so I decided to stick to getting craft advice from writers who put out the kind of work I aspire to.) I don't think I've ever read any of KKR's posts on the subject.

On this _specific_ post, it was interesting, but it didn't offer any new insights, and it didn't give me any sort of information I found useful going into 2015. It was more of a "yeah, I guess" post for me.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Z. Rider- you'll notice I said KKR was a good writer. I did not say DWS is. There's a reason I left him out of my estimation there


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## Christine_C (Jun 29, 2014)

No Cat said:


> I learned by reading that blog that the 50,000+ copies I've sold at .99 means I'm failing. Whew. I was so confused by these huge checks I've been getting that I thought I was succeeding. I'm glad KKR could set me straight


Seriously! I do not understand the concept that 50,000 $0.99 books is a failure.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

CN_Crawford said:


> Seriously! I do not understand the concept that 50,000 $0.99 books is a failure.


Well, if you quit after that, I guess you'd fail in the long term. But selling lots of a first book at a low price is a strat for the long term because you'll see a lot more money over all on the series as a whole, generally. But KKR apparently can't see that.


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## Z. Rider (Aug 15, 2014)

No Cat said:


> Z. Rider- you'll notice I said KKR was a good writer. I did not say DWS is. There's a reason I left him out of my estimation there


Eventually I'll get around to checking her books out.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

CN_Crawford said:


> Seriously! I do not understand the concept that 50,000 $0.99 books is a failure.


The logic is that if you can sell 50,000 at $0.99, why not sell them or try to sell as many copies at $2.99 or $3.99. You would not only make a lot more money, but develop a fan-base accustomed to paying a couple more dollars for your books. But I agree that calling 50,000 at 99 cents a failure is a little much. The good news in that and even 50,000 free downloads is that a lot of people are interested in your writing. KKR's point, again, is that, if they were that interested, they'd buy your books at a higher price.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

PaulLev said:


> The logic is that if you can sell 50,000 at $0.99, why not sell them or try to sell as many copies at $2.99 or $3.99. You would not only make a lot more money, but develop a fan-base accustomed to paying a couple more dollars for your books. But I agree that calling 50,000 at 99 cents a failure is a little much. The good news in that and even 50,000 free downloads is that a lot of people are interested in your writing. KKR's point, again, is that, if they were that interested, they'd buy your books at a higher price.


This is another one of those pieces of logic that sounds good, but isn't really true in my experience. Many times, readers will choose to purchase a 99 cent book, or download for free to see if they even LIKE your stuff. They AREN'T that interested in your writing yet. The whole point of the loss leader is to get the customer to realize you have something worthwhile on offer, after which they're more than willing to cough up bigger dollar amounts in the future.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

gorvnice said:


> This is another one of those pieces of logic that sounds good, but isn't really true in my experience. Many times, readers will choose to purchase a 99 cent book, or download for free to see if they even LIKE your stuff. They AREN'T that interested in your writing yet. The whole point of the loss leader is to get the customer to realize you have something worthwhile on offer, after which they're more than willing to cough up bigger dollar amounts in the future.


Fair enough. But there's still the question of what the maximum price should be for a loss leader. Lowering a $7.99 book to $2.99 on a sale is certainly a significant saving for the would-be reader. So, the ultimate question is how many fewer potential readers would you get at $2.99 in contrast to $0.99.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

PaulLev said:


> Fair enough. But there's still the question of what the maximum price should be for a loss leader. Lowering a $7.99 book to $2.99 on a sale is certainly a significant saving for the would-be reader. So, the ultimate question is how many fewer potential readers would you get at $2.99 in contrast to $0.99.


The answer to this question is completely genre, book and series dependent.

For the kind of work I do, my stuff is precisely designed to be as cheap as possible and short as possible in order to specifically short-circuit these exact dilemmas.

I write novellas that are connected in a series, and I price book 1 at 99 cents and the other books that follow, I price at anything from 2.99 to 3.99.

Because my books are shorter, I don't have the problem of spending 3 months to a year writing something long and then feeling that I need to be compensated at 6.99 for it.

And because I have so many books, I'm occasionally able to do very large bundles of work and price it at 99 cents to entice readers that are apprehensive about the serial format.

If I was working in a genre that resisted shorter work and serials, and I had to write novels, than I would try and write VERY fast and still price the first one cheap or free. It would hurt, but once I got enough long novels out, at maybe 5.99 and up, it would make up for the loss on that first book.

But I specifically stopped writing novels because of the issues it presents in terms of time spent writing/profit achieved on a per book basis.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

BTW, I realize there are many, many authors who do write novels and sell very, very well, pricing higher also.

So I'm not against high-priced work, and specifically novels.  I'm not saying you can't do it.

But there is a tension created due to the time it takes to write a novel and then how to make sure your time is being compensated for the amount of effort it takes to pump out a full-length book at 70K words and up.

The thing is, saying that you should price it higher because readers will buy it if they're interested is not always true.  First you need to reel them in somehow.  There are writers who've been able to get readers interested in higher priced work right off the bat, but it's definitely a tougher road to go down.

That's why permafree and sales days have become so essential for most of us...


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## Christine_C (Jun 29, 2014)

PaulLev said:


> The logic is that if you can sell 50,000 at $0.99, why not sell them or try to sell as many copies at $2.99 or $3.99. You would not only make a lot more money, but develop a fan-base accustomed to paying a couple more dollars for your books. But I agree that calling 50,000 at 99 cents a failure is a little much. The good news in that and even 50,000 free downloads is that a lot of people are interested in your writing. KKR's point, again, is that, if they were that interested, they'd buy your books at a higher price.


That makes sense. I guess either scenario sounds awesome to me.


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## Deborahsmith author (Jul 23, 2013)

gorvnice said:


> This is another one of those pieces of logic that sounds good, but isn't really true in my experience. Many times, readers will choose to purchase a 99 cent book, or download for free to see if they even LIKE your stuff. They AREN'T that interested in your writing yet. The whole point of the loss leader is to get the customer to realize you have something worthwhile on offer, after which they're more than willing to cough up bigger dollar amounts in the future.





PaulLev said:


> The logic is that if you can sell 50,000 at $0.99, why not sell them or try to sell as many copies at $2.99 or $3.99. You would not only make a lot more money, but develop a fan-base accustomed to paying a couple more dollars for your books. But I agree that calling 50,000 at 99 cents a failure is a little much. The good news in that and even 50,000 free downloads is that a lot of people are interested in your writing. KKR's point, again, is that, if they were that interested, they'd buy your books at a higher price.





gorvnice said:


> The problem with ANY marketing advice is that what worked a year ago may be the wrong advice for today's marketplace. And it could be the wrong advice for your genre or sub-genre. Or the wrong advice for a stand-alone book but not for the first book in a series. I've noticed that too many marketing "experts" keep their advice vague and aim it at the broadest group of authors. Making it mostly worthless.


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## eleanorberesford (Dec 22, 2014)

CN_Crawford said:


> That makes sense. I guess either scenario sounds awesome to me.


To me, too! It certainly meets my definition of success.

These types of articles always make me sad, because although I write fast, I rewrite, edit and perfect slowly. I couldn't possibly have the output that is always advised and still take pride in my writing, which tbh is probably much more important to me than money. I guess that makes me one of the hobby, not profession, writers the article talks about.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

The logic sounds nice, it's true. But the reality doesn't bear it out. 

Following their advice, by January of this year (2014), I had over 40 books up (a mix of novels, short stories, novellas, and collections). My prices were all 2.99 and up pretty much. (Shorts at 2.99, novellas at 3.99, collections at 5.99, novels at 5.99-7.99).  I sold 18 copies. Of anything. At all. Made about 40 bucks, because my prices were pretty high (it was mostly a handful of novellas that sold, since they were in a series with the first at 2.99). 

In Feb, I dropped my prices (.99 for 1 novella, 2.99 for the other couple, 3.99 for novels and collections) and set 7 short stories and two novellas (including the first in a series) to free. I sold 60 books. No other changes. I made almost 120 bucks. Lower pricing, fewer books with prices, etc, led to real results.

I shared these results with Kris and Dean. I was banned from their workshops, told I was an idiot (in so many words, pretty much), and what had been 4 years of being their student and friend was over, just like that. Because I argued with them and did things they didn't think were smart.

How does the story of 2014 end for me? I completely abandoned everything they had taught me about marketing and business other than a few common sense things (like sign your own checks, etc). The next project I worked on, I decided on the market before I wrote it. I wrote it with my target readership in mind. I watched my reviews on the first book like a hawk and made sure that the second and third books had things in them readers asked for more of. I unpublished underperforming books, put one series into Select/KU, dropped some of my prices even further, etc.

How did it work out? I made nearly six figures in the last six months of this year. With the money that will get paid out in the first two months of 2015, I'm almost to six figures for 2015 as well and it ain't even here yet.

Because I'm no longer the hare napping under the tree, believing in a magical long-term strategy that never seems to arrive. Now I'm a tortoise, inching along a day at a time, paying attention to what works now, today, so that as tomorrow turns into today, I can adapt and face the present instead of ignoring it in favor of a future that will always be over the horizon.

In my experience, for the moment, funneling readers into a series with strategic use of pricing works.  The goal with a first book, for me, is to capture as many readers as possible. So I remove anything that might be a barrier to entry, which includes making sure the price is a no-brainer/no barrier price. If that stops working and something else comes along to funnel readers better, I'll start doing that. That's what being nimble is about and a huge advantage we indies still have on the trad publishers who can't react quickly to new information.


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## BillSmithBooksDotCom (Nov 4, 2012)

As OP, I feel like I kind of share some of the blame for this ... "spirited discussion."

I still stand by original comments, with some clarification.

I base all of my opinions from my perspective as a reader and book buyer, not a writer because I haven't posted any of my books yet (will soon).

I think Kris is 100% right in that you will see a lot of authors give up and move on. There are always these booms and busts in creative fields when a type of product gets hot (as mentioned in my OP commentary). It happens EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

People think they have found a money tree whenever a field gets hot. In fact, they have found a garden that needs nurturing and care and in time, there may be a money harvest if you are diligent and work at it.

I believe Kris's comment that selling 50,000 books at 99 cents is NOT a success is rooted in the idea that a writer typically looks for this business to be a career. A one-time success is not a career because it doesn't put food on the table for long...maybe a year. But after that year, back to something else. In music, they're called "one-hit wonders." Few writers want that, I suspect.

But follow that up with more successes and ongoing titles that sell steadily over years and decades...yes, you can have a fine career. I believe that is the distinction she is trying to make. Keep on putting out good books and building a reputation for solid storytelling. That is a career.

She is observing that this businesses has rises and falls, just like any other business. To stick with it, you have to ride the dips and valleys and keep at it. If you give up as soon as it gets hard...you may be missing out on potential upswings in the future.

All absolutely true IMHO.

I think she is right in asserting that the explosive growth of ebooks is probably leveling off and we are seeing a maturing market. That's what "end of the gold rush" is all about.

I am on the fence about that -- I think ebooks will continue to grow, just not as spectacularly.

Still, lots of studies show that many readers still prefer paper to ebooks. (Didn't a recent survey show 78% of teens preferred paper.) Why? It's not just tactile words on paper. I think part of it is cost. Smart phone screens are not really ideal for reading (again, IMHO) -- battery life is too limited, too much distraction.

When people read, they want to get away from distractions. Much of the time, that means a physical book or a dedicated eink reader.

I really believe that the market still has enormous potential for growth when we get $25 eink readers -- cheap enough to be disposable.

(Lost of people use and prefer phones to eink. That's fine. I still think LOTS and LOTS of readers will scoop up eink readers when they get dirt cheap and that will mean wonderful things for ebooks. IF it ever happens.)

When Kris talks about "gaming the system" she is really looking at the "easy tricks/stunts to get to the top of the lists." These are fads and promotional strategies that come and go -- and sometimes they work, sometimes for a long time and sometimes only for a little while -- and while they will help you get attention and "sampler" readers, they are not a substitute for writing great books.

If you write great books and use these tricks, they will help you get attention and readers who go on to read your other stuff. If your books are lacking, your results will be "here today, forgotten tomorrow."

I think Kris and Dean's main thrust is "write great books and make THAT your top priority." If you do that, everything else will follow. They have the attitude of be prolific and that way, when you get readers, they will have plenty of products to buy from you -- it would be analogous to the so-called "miracle of compound interest in investing."

If you spend a ton of time marketing and only have a couple of books, sure you might sell wide, but no matter how crazy readers are over your books, you don't have a lot to sell to them.

If you have a large, solid catalog, every new fan is a reader that can generate multiple, very profitable sales.

I think it is fundamentally very sound advice.

If you have great books, all of the marketing and promotional elements will come together and you will find your audience. And the best promotion in the world will only give you a boost but not sustain your career if your books are not what readers want.

I agree with Kris and Dean that being prolific is really helpful. However, I think being cross-genre is much harder to pull off -- I have had numerous authors who worked on licensed titles tell me that their rabid fans for the licensed products seldom followed them to other work. I can imagine that getting a reader to jump from one genre to another is a MUCH bigger leap.

Personally, all of my stuff is going to be be in one consistent universe, a series more-or-less (i.e. all same universe, you don't need to have read other books to get into the universe if you stumble across a random title). It's a business strategy, yes, but I also do this because I love the universe/setting I have created and am having way too much fun exploring it. And ultimately, if I am going to work hard at storytelling, I'm going to do something I love. (And I do have just that little bit of arrogance/hope that convinces me there is a market for my books.) So yeah, letting my emotions get ahead of my business sense and waiting for reality to smack me in the face.

But also having a grand time telling my stories. 

I also disagree with their philosophy on pricing. I think their recommendations on pricing are just high enough to actually discourage new readers.

I believe permafree is always going to help create new customers -- it's not a magic bullet because so many people use it, but it is the best way to let readers try your work and see if they like your stories. Likewise, 99 cent titles give readers a relatively painless entry price-point and that is always good. You have to groom a customer, let them get in the door without a big commitment -- and then, when you blow their socks off, they're a lot more likely to take the plunge. At least that is always how I have looked at it. Free/cheap titles exist to lay the foundation for getting readers to try your higher priced stuff.

(Neil Gaiman has a wonderful story about autographing books. He makes a really critical point -- your biggest fans might not have the money to buy your books right now...but someday they might. You need to treat them with respect even if they don't have the financial means to be the customer you want them to be right now.)

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2003/03/dont-know-how-youll-feel-about-this.asp


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Being prolific is good. Being prolific without a solid plan on how to sell those books is less useful. 

If Kris and Dean have taught me anything, it is that having a ton of books available all by itself is not a strategy for a long-term, successful career in the indie world of publishing. So I thank them for that lesson. 500+ titles will do you little good without a plan for how to sell them and having lots of real estate doesn't do the trick all on its own. It's a good lesson to learn, I think, if probably stressful for the ones learning it.

And yeah, Bill, in my experience fans of a tie-in fiction world like Star Wars or the various game worlds etc don't transition well to original work. Fans of those franchises seem to want more of that franchise and few will cross over. Same in my experience with short stories in magazines. Very few readers will go from the magazine to hunting down your longer work (however, having a fan base for your longer work will sell more of the magazine/anthology, so fans seem to travel the other direction, which is probably why magazines and anthologies like having big name authors inside, hehe).


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## No longer seen (Aug 17, 2013)

No Cat said:


> Same in my experience with short stories in magazines. Very few readers will go from the magazine to hunting down your longer work (however, having a fan base for your longer work will sell more of the magazine/anthology, so fans seem to travel the other direction, which is probably why magazines and anthologies like having big name authors inside, hehe).


Some Kboards readers may not realize you're referring to Kris's advice to publish short stories as a form of advertising to drive magazine 
readers to your books on Kindle. This is a traditional strategy that has worked to establish the careers of hundreds maybe thousands of writers, at least in SF/F and mysteries (romance didn't have such magazines).

Back in the old days, which KKR and DSW (and me!) remember, most SF/F writers began writing short stories. Obviously, they're shorter and therefore easier for a new writer to deal with than a novel. The digest-sized magazines got distribution to newsstands, candy stores, and drugstores, where they were found by the same readers looking for paperbacks. Once readers read and enjoyed a few great stories by you in F&SF, GALAXY, ANALOG, etc, they were more to buying your novel when it appeared. A good short story writer could build quite a reputation with readers and organized SF fandom. After years of writing well-received short stories, George RR Martin got a HUGE (for the time) advance for his first novel.

(Bookstores? Don't make me laugh. My town was too small for bookstores. I still read and learned the genre just by paying attention to both magazines and paperbacks. However, that distribution system has vanished, a major change in its own right.)

Of course there were exceptions. Caroline Cherry began with novels and Harlan Ellison writes only short stories.

I find it kind of sad the likes of F&SF no longer help drive the genre, but with so many novels available through immediate download, that kind of makes sense.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Richard Stooker said:


> Some Kboards readers may not realize you're referring to Kris's advice to publish short stories as a form of advertising to drive magazine readers to your books on Kindle. This is a traditional strategy that has worked to establish the careers of hundreds maybe thousands of writers, at least in SF/F and mysteries (romance didn't have such magazines).


If they still (in 2014) are giving this advice in regards to selling short stories to magazines/traditionally pubbed anthologies, in order to be discovered on Amazon, etc., then I see that as a fundamental misunderstanding of how the algo's work (on Amazon in particular).

So I'm not sure if DWS and KKR still give this advice, or if they said it in 2010 or something....

But if this is still a recommended technique, I think it's akin to telling someone to try and convince people to let you do a comedy show in their living room instead of uploading the same comedy show to Youtube in order to gain an audience.

The massive numbers of readers who are using the Amazon search engine to find books (not to mention all of the other platforms) is stunning. We're talking instant access to MILLIONS of potential readers, with a search engine that's designed to allow them to find your book, provided you understand the system of keywords, blurbs, categories, etc. well enough to make your book findable.

For people who are new to self-publishing and don't truly understand the power of the Amazon algo's, they really can't grasp that through Also Boughts, recommendations, emails, popularity and bestseller lists, hot new releases--your book can be exposed to thousands of new readers every single day.

And all of those discoverability avenues come from Amazon, and you as a writer/publisher don't have to do a damn thing other than put your book up on KDP and do some basic diligence with selecting keywords, etc.

But you do have to LEARN THIS NEW BUSINESS.

Otherwise, as simple as much of this stuff can be, you'll screw it up due to ignorance. You have to educate yourself, watch what's happening, study it, read blogs and news articles and kboards and so on and on and on.

You have to publish a lot of books/stories and try different tactics to start to get a read on what works and what doesn't work.

But to recommend selling short stories in order to drive readers to your kindle books??

That's really outmoded thinkings. Again, I don't know if this advice is still being preached, but if so, I really want to understand how it's defensible given how prehistoric it is relative to the technology at our disposal today.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

No Cat said:


> The logic sounds nice, it's true. But the reality doesn't bear it out.
> 
> Following their advice, by January of this year (2014), I had over 40 books up (a mix of novels, short stories, novellas, and collections). My prices were all 2.99 and up pretty much. (Shorts at 2.99, novellas at 3.99, collections at 5.99, novels at 5.99-7.99). I sold 18 copies. Of anything. At all. Made about 40 bucks, because my prices were pretty high (it was mostly a handful of novellas that sold, since they were in a series with the first at 2.99).
> 
> ...


Brilliant - and the real lesson in all that is that only you can be trusted to do what's right for your business.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Selling short stories to magazines and anthologies may not do much for your direct visibility on Amazon, but it still does a lot for your overall visibility in the greater genre world, particularly for SFF. Because unlike other genres, SFF still has a lot of paying markets for short fiction, so short fiction is still a way to get noticed as an SFF author by eager readers, fans and critics of the genre. And since many SFF fans are reluctant to take a chance on indie authors, having stories in well regarded genre mags makes readers put you on their personal list of known and trusted authors, which makes them more likely to check out your indie work. Plus, pro-sales get you into the SFWA, if that's what you want, and short fiction published in well regarded pro venues have a much higher chance of getting nominated for the Hugo or Nebula awards (though indie published work is theoretically eligible and has actually been nominated). You also need pro-sales to be eligible for the Campbell Award at all.

However, the downside is that SFF is the only genre where that strategy can still work, because other genres don't have the same vibrant short fiction market nor do they have the same rather conservative fanbase that is reluctant to take a chance on indie books, unless they are in an underserved subgenre, hence the success of indie military SF, space opera and post-apocalyptic SF. Plus, there are other ways in getting on SFF readers mental "trusted indie author" list, namely blogging about SFF issues and interacting with the community or at least the part of which that's your target audience.

I rarely submit short fiction to magazines and webzines these days anymore and don't bother with anything but pro markets, but if I had a shot at one of the top zines or a good anthology, you can bet that I'd take it.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Good point, Cora.  There are also a few vibrant mystery magazine markets - Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine - which are published by Penny Press, the same organization that publishes Analog and Asimov's.  In fact, KKR has a Christmas mystery story up online on the Ellery Queen site right now.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

I always found the US mystery and crime short fiction market somewhat anaemic compared to the German market for short crime fiction, where you can still find short mysteries in the backpages of many general interest magazines. But good point that there still are paying markets for short crime fiction in the US.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

gorvnice said:


> BTW, I realize there are many, many authors who do write novels and sell very, very well, pricing higher also.
> 
> So I'm not against high-priced work, and specifically novels. I'm not saying you can't do it.
> 
> ...


I can't disagree with any of that - especially that lower pricing may well be the best route for fiction shorter than novels. Part of the complexity here is that, as has been mentioned in several previous posts, short fiction comes from a publishing tradition radically different from novels: you get paid once, on sale, usually on a per-word basis, and it then doesn't matter to the author in terms of payment if the issue of the magazine with your story gets in the hands of 10,000 or 100,000 readers. So. although you of course want readers to love your work, their love has no direct connection to how much you're paid for the work. A traditionally published novel is obviously completely different: you earn back your advance from sales to readers, and make income over your advance when the book keeps selling.

It may well be that frequent freebies and/or low prices for short fiction is the best way to go for their indie Kindle publication. My impression of KKR's advice, which I mostly very much agree with, is that it is indeed directed to novels.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

PaulLev said:


> I can't disagree with any of that - especially that lower pricing may well be the best route for fiction shorter than novels. Part of the complexity here is that, as has been mentioned in several previous posts, short fiction comes from a publishing tradition radically different from novels: you get paid once, on sale, usually on a per-word basis, and it then doesn't matter to the author in terms of payment if the issue of the magazine with your story gets in the hands of 10,000 or 100,000 readers. So. although you of course want readers to love your work, their love has no direct connection to how much you're paid for the work. A traditionally published novel is obviously completely different: you earn back your advance from sales to readers, and make income over your advance when the book keeps selling.
> 
> It may well be that frequent freebies and/or low prices for short fiction is the best way to go for their indie Kindle publication. My impression of KKR's advice, which I mostly very much agree with, is that it is indeed directed to novels.


Right. It is directed to both shorts and novels (Dean publishes a lot of shorts as well as shorter novels, Kris is more of a novel and novella writer, though often her shorts go up after she's gotten the rights back from selling them to magazines).

The thing is, cheap or free books as the intro to a series does work. Does it work for everyone? No, of course not. There is nothing that works for everyone. We don't publish in a vacuum where one thing is the magic bullet to success. Sometimes you can do everything someone else did and totally miss, because each book and each writer are different and readers are mercurial creatures. But over and over there is evidence that pricing a book so as to create a funnel into your other work is an effective strategy to selling more books over the long term. And it is a strategy that for some reason KKR doesn't see the value in, despite having never tried it. Any sale she's ever run lasted a very short time, was accompanied by poorly utilized advertising (it's hard to screw up a BB, twice, but they managed somehow even though for them I'm sure they thought the results were great since they sell so little that a few hundred sales looks like success), and had little follow-on value because the sale was so short, the books were poorly keyworded and branded, and the other books that follow were overpriced (and with rather few reviews, which is another issue).

Anyway, I'll shut up. They didn't listen to me and my results or advice when we were friends. I know they won't bother now. It's frustrating though since they influence and teach so many people, charging money for advice that has had poor results. It'd be nice if they were less dismissive of successful indies and more open to swallowing their egos and actually trying stuff out before saying it doesn't work. Sigh.


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## EC (Aug 20, 2013)

I write titles to be funnels - and I write titles to be earners - I write titles for KU - and I write titles to go wide.  I don't know what all the circular arguing about pricing is meant to achieve? 

I sometimes get the impression that some authors are far too emotionally attached to their books - this is a business.


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## a_g (Aug 9, 2013)

No Cat said:


> The thing is, cheap or free books as the intro to a series does work. Does it work for everyone? No, of course not. There is nothing that works for everyone. We don't publish in a vacuum where one thing is the magic bullet to success. Sometimes you can do everything someone else did and totally miss, because each book and each writer are different and readers are mercurial creatures. But over and over there is evidence that pricing a book so as to create a funnel into your other work is an effective strategy to selling more books over the long term. And it is a strategy that for some reason KKR doesn't see the value in, despite having never tried it. Any sale she's ever run lasted a very short time, was accompanied by poorly utilized advertising (it's hard to screw up a BB, twice, but they managed somehow even though for them I'm sure they thought the results were great since they sell so little that a few hundred sales looks like success), and had little follow-on value because the sale was so short, the books were poorly keyworded and branded, and the other books that follow were overpriced (and with rather few reviews, which is another issue).


Well, I've also noticed several successful writers on this very board that don't use this strategy and they're vocal about it, and they seem to be doing just fine. Just going on to show that it has to be _what works for you_.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

a_g said:


> Well, I've also noticed several successful writers on this very board that don't use this strategy and they're vocal about it, and they seem to be doing just fine. Just going on to show that it has to be _what works for you_.


Yes, and that tends to be a genre thing. If you're in an underserved genre where the readers are hungry, you can price high and not use loss leaders.

This touches on another aspect of KKR's post - she's really dismissive, mocking even, of writers who hunt down underserved genres and attempt to write to fulfill them. Personally, I think that might be a great strategy, one that I might try next if permafree goes away for whatever reason. I see nothing wrong with trying to find a hungry and underserved genre and writing something for it. Elizabeth Ann West has done awesome doing just that, and it's obvious that she did her homework before getting into Jane Austen Fan Fiction. She has a great post on how to do it - how to find an underserved and hungry genre. She's cleaning up, and I cheer her on all the way.

I'm in a competitive genre, where loss leaders are almost required. And I'm doing very well, but only because of my permafrees. I would prefer not to have to rely on permafrees, though, so I might take Elizabeth's advice and try to find a slightly different genre that is either just now emerging (so there's little competition yet) or is smaller but has voracious readers for it and not a lot of writers in it. In other words, I might go ahead and try to catch a wave.


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## Jarrett Rush (Jun 19, 2010)

Vaalingrade said:


> If the information supports that you already want to be the truth, then it's great and thoughtful and should not be examined closer. If it does not support it, then it's time to examine... the source and find ways to tear them down--while the information should not be examined closer.
> 
> Either way,t he actual information never gets examined closer because doing otherwise wouldn't preserve inertia. Only when something devastating, that can't be tucked away happens, does this ever change.


This pretty much defines the way the wold works right now, whether you're talking about politics or publishing.


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## Michelle Lowery (Nov 22, 2014)

I think some of what both KKR and DWS say is valuable, just like I don't take all of what anyone else says as gospel. Some is useful and helpful to me, some is not, the key words there being _some_ and _to me_.

However, one thought I've had is that both of them had already made their names through traditional publishing before they began self-publishing, so they already had brand recognition and an audience. Writing without promoting has worked well for them because they were already known.

For new, unknown writers, sure, they may still make sales if they just keep writing and not promoting, but probably not as many as they would with some sort of promotion, at least initially.

I have yet to see either of them acknowledge this, and I don't know if it's because they have and I've just missed it, they really don't see it, or they're purposely ignoring that fact for some reason. Anyway, it's something I keep in mind when I read posts like this by either of them.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Michelle Lowery said:


> I think some of what both KKR and DWS say is valuable, just like I don't take all of what anyone else says as gospel. Some is useful and helpful to me, some is not, the key words there being _some_ and _to me_.
> 
> However, one thought I've had is that both of them had already made their names through traditional publishing before they began self-publishing, so they already had brand recognition and an audience. Writing without promoting has worked well for them because they were already known.
> 
> ...


Actually, some of my point is that writing without promoting has *not* worked well for them, despite having the trad background. Dean's trad background is almost wholly under alleged pen names, and in tie-in fiction, so he started from scratch in terms of platform when he began writing indie-published books.
I do think Kris has more of a platform, especially with her two SF series, which is probably why it sells even at the very low level that it does.

With them, it certainly isn't a lack of production or titles holding them back (and for Kris, it isn't her writing quality which is great), but clearly the marketing/packaging side of things. It seems to me that in indie publishing, if you want to be a long term success, you really have to nail both sides of the business. Write good books, sure, and lots of them, but also sell them which means staying on top of what works in the present climate, whatever that is, and being willing to change what you are doing, change covers, etc if whatever it is stops working or never worked in the first place.


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## Michelle Lowery (Nov 22, 2014)

No Cat said:


> Actually, some of my point is that writing without promoting has *not* worked well for them, despite having the trad background. Dean's trad background is almost wholly under alleged pen names, and in tie-in fiction, so he started from scratch in terms of platform when he began writing indie-published books.
> I do think Kris has more of a platform, especially with her two SF series, which is probably why it sells even at the very low level that it does.
> 
> With them, it certainly isn't a lack of production or titles holding them back (and for Kris, it isn't her writing quality which is great), but clearly the marketing/packaging side of things. It seems to me that in indie publishing, if you want to be a long term success, you really have to nail both sides of the business. Write good books, sure, and lots of them, but also sell them which means staying on top of what works in the present climate, whatever that is, and being willing to change what you are doing, change covers, etc if whatever it is stops working or never worked in the first place.


Hmm...interesting. And I agree with you, it should be a combined effort of both writing and selling/marketing. I can't imagine any other type of business tolerating "just produce high volume and don't market" advice. I find that advice odd, especially coming into this from a marketing background. But again, I haven't been reading them as long as others have, so I thought perhaps I might have been missing something. 

One thing that's ironic for sure, though--for all their talk about not promoting or marketing, that's exactly what every single blog post is. It's called content marketing.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Michelle Lowery said:


> One thing that's ironic for sure, though--for all their talk about not promoting or marketing, that's exactly what every single blog post is. It's called content marketing.


True! You can see this in Dean's also-boughts actually. They are mainly for writing books, which tells me at least looking at them that the people who buy his fiction are mostly the writers who read his blog. He's marketing to the wrong crowd, in my opinion, and it hurts sales. Kris, who blogs less about writing, especially these days, has better also-boughts that actually reflect her genres, so I think her approach is probably smarter from a gathering readers instead of other writers point of view, though I hardly ever see her books in other people's also-boughts, which is where the real magic happens in my experience. But part of that is because of low sales volume. It's hard to get populated into other people's also-boughts without a decent sales record.


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## Michelle Lowery (Nov 22, 2014)

No Cat said:


> True! You can see this in Dean's also-boughts actually. They are mainly for writing books, which tells me at least looking at them that the people who buy his fiction are mostly the writers who read his blog. He's marketing to the wrong crowd, in my opinion, and it hurts sales.


Well, I've often said the one piece of advice Suze Orman leaves out when she's telling people how to build wealth is, "Write books telling people how to build wealth."


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Michelle Lowery said:


> One thing that's ironic for sure, though--for all their talk about not promoting or marketing, that's exactly what every single blog post is. It's called content marketing.


I'm glad you mentioned that, and it's to KKR's credit. As every writer who has anything for sale anywhere well knows, every other word you might write anywhere, whatever its primary purpose, is also written in the hope/expectation that it points some readers to your writing that's for sale. Hey, that might well be the primary purpose. And it applies to everything, including comments all of us write right here, doesn't it?


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## Michelle Lowery (Nov 22, 2014)

PaulLev said:


> I'm glad you mentioned that, and it's to KKR's credit. As every writer who has anything for sale anywhere well knows, every other word you might write anywhere, whatever its primary purpose, is also written in the hope/expectation that it points some readers to your writing that's for sale. Hey, that might well be the primary purpose. And it applies to everything, including comments all of us write right here, doesn't it?


Absolutely. But my point was that to implement such a tactic while advising writers not to engage in promotion or marketing seems a bit odd to me.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Michelle Lowery said:


> Absolutely. But my point was that to implement such a tactic while advising writers not to engage in promotion or marketing seems a bit odd to me.


Fair enough. So perhaps KKR might modify her advice to - do not engage in promotion, except when that, too, is writing


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2014)

PaulLev said:


> Fair enough. So perhaps KKR might modify her advice to - do not engage in promotion, except when that, too, is writing


I doubt it. But you can modify/apply her advice any way you like!


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## Someone (Dec 30, 2011)

Annie
Great post. There's a few things I want to tell you. 
You have class and it carries through to your covers. Your branding is very distinctive, aesthetically pleasing, and overall just classy looking. But that doesn't change after one flips the page. I've read some of your work and, after reading you, believe you should be able to do well with anything you write as long as you can gain initial visibility. After you cross the initial ability hurdle, your ability to brand your quality reads should lead to success in whatever you chose.

Because I do have this respect for you, the overall tone of your posts about permafreebies bummed me out and this one triggered me to finally say what I wanted to say when I read a different one. Definitely off topic here but I'm going to post about it anyway because I believe it is due. I've posted some about the permafreebie and my hope is that it my posts didn't come across as any kind of berating or being condescending to you or anyone who uses permafree. I am however aware some posts regarding the subject did come across that way and, to prevent myself from being misunderstood and tossed into that camp, I want to clarify I don't view those using permafree any different than I view those who don't. If someone mentions that someone uses permafree, my response is ONLY me hoping that it is working for them. I'm very sorry if I left another other impression. I'm just not the type of person to do that kind of thing and there isn't a part of me who sets out to disparage someone or a group of people. There's already way too much of that in this world, not to mention the size of the hypocrite I would be since I use permafreebie myself. 

But I have posted about permafree but have for a very different reason. I've been posting about it strictly because if by any chance AMZ acts on permiefreebie, it will be devastating for many people and it pains me to think about how bad it would be. Many people count on their book sales to put food on the table and their permafreebies play a big role in them. Because of that, I've played the devil's advocate only to point out how reliant some may be on something AMZ is very vague about. Something that we can only speculate they are okay with because they allow it. That being said, I sincerely apologize if any of my posts played any role in making you feel any need to defend a part of your business model.


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## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

> For people who are new to self-publishing and don't truly understand the power of the Amazon algo's, they really can't grasp that through Also Boughts, recommendations, emails, popularity and bestseller lists, hot new releases--your book can be exposed to thousands of new readers every single day.


In terms of SFF and using short fiction as a launching pad. It just doesn't help. At all. Really. I know that Patty Jansen will agree with me, and I'm sure others would, as well.

I am probably a pretty good use case. I've been nominated for two major genre awards. I've been published in Garnder Dozois' year's best anthology, and I'm in Hugh Howey's Apocalypse Triptych anthologies. When I put a handful of short stories for sale in August and promoted them, the result was basically zero.

Then, I had a stroke of good fortune. Hugh Howey recommended my novelette "The Old Equations" on Facebook, Twitter, and gave it a five star review on Amazon. At the same time--and this is critical--he put a bunch of his own short stories up for sale. Overnight I had a bunch of sales that were immediately connected to Hugh's short stories as "also boughts." The novelette is pretty much in the top 100 of the Amazon 90 minute SF Short Reads chart every day now, and it is NOT due to any awards or publishing. I'm convinced it is due to the also bought/Amazon algorithm that got tripped when Hugh recommended it.

In short, Amazon's algorithm is WAY WAY WAY more powerful than a Nebula nomination, a Sturgeon nomination, years' best anthology lists, and being in top selling other anthologies.

This is just for my SF novelette. I have gone completely crazy and rather than release a science fiction novel (which a NY agent told me was a million dollar concept) I've released a kid's adventure fantasy. My book was released in November and has sold very modestly since then. So this makes me even more sure that the algorithm is the key--it pulled "The Old Equations" into the Hugh Howey also bought orbit but none of my other works.

This is a great thread. I'm a huge fan of the various named and anonymous people commenting, and I have almost purposely chosen an inefficient marketing method for my debut novel with the idea that I'll jump all over other ideas mentioned here by Annie and others as book two is released.


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## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

> But I have posted about permafree but have for a very different reason. I've been posting about it strictly because if by any chance AMZ acts on permiefreebie, it will be devastating for many people and it pains me to think about how bad it would be. Many people count on their book sales to put food on the table and their permafreebies play a big role in them.


Just because a successful strategy won't work tomorrow doesn't mean you abandon it today. If there is anything to be learned from this thread it is that you need to constantly evaluate what you're doing and adapt. Not doing something successful today because it might be gone tomorrow is just not effective. We have to assume that nothing we know that works today will work tomorrow and be prepared to adapt. Until then, use the opportunities that are there. There are precious few of them.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Except I've never tried to use my short fiction as a way to get more sales. Seeing how hostile the whole SFF genre world is to self-publishing, I wouldn't hold your breath hoping for cross-pollination. I used my short fiction as look-see to try out if I liked selfpublishing.

I'm probably a poster-child for how someone can do reasonably OK while swimming completely free of any help books get from the Amazon recommendation engine


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

jakedfw said:


> Just because a successful strategy won't work tomorrow doesn't mean you abandon it today. If there is anything to be learned from this thread it is that you need to constantly evaluate what you're doing and adapt. Not doing something successful today because it might be gone tomorrow is just not effective. We have to assume that nothing we know that works today will work tomorrow and be prepared to adapt. Until then, use the opportunities that are there. There are precious few of them.


+1


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## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

> Seeing how hostile the whole SFF genre world is to self-publishing, I wouldn't hold your breath hoping for cross-pollination.


Don't care about anyone but the readers, and the readers don't care. It's all about discovery, and my point is that the things that get you anthology invitations in SFF aren't the things that get you sales in publishing. And the anthologies from those invitations? They don't get you sales either.


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

jakedfw said:


> Then, I had a stroke of good fortune. Hugh Howey recommended my novelette "The Old Equations" on Facebook, Twitter, and gave it a five star review on Amazon. At the same time--and this is critical--he put a bunch of his own short stories up for sale. Overnight I had a bunch of sales that were immediately connected to Hugh's short stories as "also boughts." The novelette is pretty much in the top 100 of the Amazon 90 minute SF Short Reads chart every day now, and it is NOT due to any awards or publishing. I'm convinced it is due to the also bought/Amazon algorithm that got tripped when Hugh recommended it.
> 
> In short, Amazon's algorithm is WAY WAY WAY more powerful than a Nebula nomination, a Sturgeon nomination, years' best anthology lists, and being in top selling other anthologies.


Yes, this is the point I've been making. Luckily, you don't need to get a recommendation from Hugh Howey to accomplish this, although it does help.

What you need to do is write the correct style of book that attracts Hugh's type of reader, targeting your keywords properly, your categories, pricing, blurb and cover in order to be connected to his books. And then doing some smart, targeted promo's that will allow Amazon's algo's to kick in and match you up to find those fans.

You got that same basic phenomenon, and it worked. Next time you'll do it without Hugh's mention.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

jakedfw said:


> Don't care about anyone but the readers, and the readers don't care. It's all about discovery, and my point is that the things that get you anthology invitations in SFF aren't the things that get you sales in publishing. And the anthologies from those invitations? They don't get you sales either.


That's because they sell mostly to same-old, same-old: genre people who are members of SFWA and hangers on who vote for Nebulas. And stuff. not saying they're not readers, but they're a very distinct and rather small sub-set.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Patty Jansen said:


> That's because they sell mostly to same-old, same-old: genre people who are members of SFWA and hangers on who vote for Nebulas. And stuff. not saying they're not readers, but they're a very distinct and rather small sub-set.


...who _used to_ make or break SFF bestsellers.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Cherise Kelley said:


> ...who _used to_ make or break SFF bestsellers.


To a point, yes, although there were always under-the-radar books that did very, very well, but we're now seeing a market that's reader-driven and it seems like some of the genre crowd haven't caught up to that fact yet.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

jakedfw said:


> In terms of SFF and using short fiction as a launching pad. It just doesn't help. At all. Really. I know that Patty Jansen will agree with me, and I'm sure others would, as well.
> 
> I am probably a pretty good use case. I've been nominated for two major genre awards. I've been published in Garnder Dozois' year's best anthology, and I'm in Hugh Howey's Apocalypse Triptych anthologies. When I put a handful of short stories for sale in August and promoted them, the result was basically zero.
> 
> ...


That's an important lesson indeed, Jake. Or, put otherwise - in the good old days (read, mid-late 1990s, for me), short story award nominations and inclusions in important "Best of" anthos in science fiction could land you a top agent and top book publisher (Ralph Vicinanza and Tor for me). And, if you wrote good stuff, the publisher could in turn sell your novels to lots of readers, get them reviewed in the New York Times, which could in turn get them nominations and awards.

But, as a path to success for indie authors today, none of that works - because there is no traditional publisher to sell to. So, other ways are necessary - as in your case, where word of mouth by an immensely respected name, Hugh Howey, brought you to the attention of new readers. In the old days, blurbs written by big names would go on the backs of printed books. Nowadays, in the age of social media, they work in a much more direct way to attract readers.

In any case - congrats on your well-deserves success.


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## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

Thanks, Paul!

And to be clear, what I mentioned does get you the attention of major publishing houses and top level agents. And my meetings with both have confirmed that it is still true today. But for those like me who decide to not go that route anyway, that asset no longer matters. Which, to be honest, is kind of scary and painful, but it is what it is.


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## No longer seen (Aug 17, 2013)

jakedfw said:


> In short, Amazon's algorithm is WAY WAY WAY more powerful than a Nebula nomination, a Sturgeon nomination, years' best anthology lists, and being in top selling other anthologies.


You've just been expelled from SFWA.

Seriously, as someone who grew up in the SF/F world, this one statement brings home the indie revolution even more dramatically than Joe Konrath's blog posts.


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## TonyU (Dec 14, 2014)

As a new fiction writer and a newbie to the kboards, my basic take from this thread is:  "If you don't write romance or whatever is the hot trend of the moment, you're wasting your time."  As someone who has never read a romance book let alone written one, that bums me out.  I'm wondering if indie publishing is even worthwhile for someone who doesn't write to the trends.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

TonyU said:


> As a new fiction writer and a newbie to the kboards, my basic take from this thread is: "If you don't write romance or whatever is the hot trend of the moment, you're wasting your time." As someone who has never read a romance book let alone written one, that bums me out. I'm wondering if indie publishing is even worthwhile for someone who doesn't write to the trends.


I think you misread most of the posts. There are other Hot genres besides romance. If you ask me the world needs more thrillers and Sci fi. 
So don't be bummed. Go write the book of your choosing.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

jakedfw said:


> Thanks, Paul!
> 
> And to be clear, what I mentioned does get you the attention of major publishing houses and top level agents. And my meetings with both have confirmed that it is still true today. But for those like me who decide to not go that route anyway, that asset no longer matters. Which, to be honest, is kind of scary and painful, but it is what it is.


You made the right decision.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

cinisajoy said:


> Go write the book of your choosing.


Hear hear!


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

There are hot genres and hot niches, and what that means depends on what you want to accomplish and how much money you need to make for your business.  

If you want to run a hot dog stand, is it going to make as much money as a well-run McDonalds?  No, but it could still be a successful hot dog stand.  And all the way on up to the finest five-star restaurant.  There are all sorts of levels of success based on intention, expectation, investment and need.

You have to decide what your need is, your expectation, what you want to accomplish.  Certain niches are simply smaller, they have a smaller audience.  Is that sad?

It could be sad.

If you love writing poetry, it's probably quite sad to realize that it's almost impossible to make a living at it these days.

Don't listen to those who tell you that if you just love it enough, it will work.  That's absolutely false.  Pipe dreams and telling yourself happy fairy tales won't make you a success at this.  You look with a cold, objective gaze and then make decisions based on what you find.

You can adjust your expectations and then go into things with your eyes open.

I could have cried and quit because my horror novels didn't make ends meet for me.  But I wanted to write full-time so I found a way.  And it's not sad at all from my end of things.

Don't run a hot dog stand and then get p*ssed at the world because you aren't making McDonalds money at it.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

TonyU said:


> I'm wondering if indie publishing is even worthwhile for someone who doesn't write to the trends.


Absolutely. Because what you're passionate about writing now might not be a trend now, but might be next year. Or in two years, or never. Who knows? Each writer needs to decide how they want to carry their career forward--write in hot trends, write what you love, both, neither, or what's behind curtain Z. Anything is possible and there is no one right way. What's good for one writer's career might suck for another's. Determine WHY you are writing and WHAT you want out of your career. Pick your path, own it, and have fun.


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## TonyU (Dec 14, 2014)

cinisajoy said:


> Go write the book of your choosing.


I intend to, thanks! I guess I'm torn right now on whether it's worthwhile to pursue indie publishing or if I'd be better off looking into traditional. Is there an indie market for a bleak, dark Twin Peaks? Maybe there's no market anywhere, but I think the story's coming together nicely so I'll write it anyway - and it does have series potential.

I know I shouldn't even worry about that right now though, I just need to write it.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

TonyU said:


> I intend to, thanks! I guess I'm torn right now on whether it's worthwhile to pursue indie publishing or if I'd be better off looking into traditional. Is there an indie market for a bleak, dark Twin Peaks? Maybe there's no market anywhere, but I think the story's coming together nicely so I'll write it anyway - and it does have series potential.
> 
> I know I shouldn't even worry about that right now though, I just need to write it.


I don't write romance. I am making 6 figures year.

There are plenty of genres readers enjoy reading that have a solid market. What seems to work best is to identify what market you want to hit, who the readers are for what you are writing, and then start looking at the kind of plan that will get your books in front of that readership.

I fully believe not every book or every writer is designed to do well in indie publishing. There is still a place for taking a book to a trad pub and selling it that way, because there are kinds of books and kinds of markets that trad is still the best vehicle for. There is no shame in gathering information, deciding what you want to write most, and realizing that indie publishing won't serve your needs.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Someone said:


> Annie
> Great post. There's a few things I want to tell you.
> You have class and it carries through to your covers. Your branding is very distinctive, aesthetically pleasing, and overall just classy looking. But that doesn't change after one flips the page. I've read some of your work and, after reading you, believe you should be able to do well with anything you write as long as you can gain initial visibility. After you cross the initial ability hurdle, your ability to brand your quality reads should lead to success in whatever you chose.
> 
> ...


What a sweet post! Thanks for your kind words!

I don't like relying on permafree, either, just because it seems to be volatile. Who knows if it will always be available? So, it if goes away, I'll be scrambling along with a lot of other authors. But I'm nimble and hope to survive. That's what being an indie author means - if something happens that might cut into your income, you look for some other advantage. But hopefully I won't have to worry about that.

 And don't worry, I wasn't referring to any of your posts about permafree. There have been no shortage of posters who are condescending at best about the subject of permafree, but you weren't one of them.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

TonyU said:


> As a new fiction writer and a newbie to the kboards, my basic take from this thread is: "If you don't write romance or whatever is the hot trend of the moment, you're wasting your time." As someone who has never read a romance book let alone written one, that bums me out. I'm wondering if indie publishing is even worthwhile for someone who doesn't write to the trends.


OK, I just visited the top 20 Kindle store.

You can do that, too. Here:

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-eBooks/zgbs/digital-text/154606011/ref=pd_ts_zgc_kstore_154606011_morl?pf_rd_p=1711180822&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-right-3&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=154606011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=01DG2NNS7RYRHT4HRRES

How many of them are romance?


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## gorvnice (Dec 29, 2010)

Not only is indie publishing wrong for some books and some authors.

There are some books that simply will not sell.

I put my heart and soul and spent about 2 years crafting a young adult book that got a top tier agent and was shopped to big editors.  It was high-concept, everything.  And it didn't sell, so when I went indie I eventually put the book out.

You know what?  It didn't sell as an ebook either.  It was a boy-centered YA with a very dark plot.  Nobody gave a crap.

All of my work, and it didn't sell.

Some books just don't have an audience, won't find an audience, were never meant to be read by lots of people.  I can accept that.  If you're going to be a writer, and have a long career, you need to be able to accept that not every book is meant to work out.

Some books have no market.  Some books aren't well written enough.  

There are as many reasons for a book to fail as there are stars in the sky.  What I do, is I write ANOTHER book.  And another.  And another.  And I keep trying to find that audience, and eventually I have so far.


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## JR. (Dec 10, 2014)

PaulLev said:


> But, as a path to success for indie authors today, none of that works - because there is no traditional publisher to sell to. So, other ways are necessary - as in your case, where word of mouth by an immensely respected name, Hugh Howey, brought you to the attention of new readers. In the old days, blurbs written by big names would go on the backs of printed books. Nowadays, in the age of social media, they work in a much more direct way to attract readers.


Good point.

I better start sucking up making friends with stars on twitter. There is a very big name that often retweets/favourites my comments. Hopefully I can work that to my advantage later.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Patty Jansen said:


> OK, I just visited the top 20 Kindle store.
> 
> You can do that, too. Here:
> 
> ...


3/20


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

TonyU said:


> I intend to, thanks! I guess I'm torn right now on whether it's worthwhile to pursue indie publishing or if I'd be better off looking into traditional. Is there an indie market for a bleak, dark Twin Peaks? Maybe there's no market anywhere, but I think the story's coming together nicely so I'll write it anyway - and it does have series potential.
> 
> I know I shouldn't even worry about that right now though, I just need to write it.


I would say self publish. You can make more per book, you get paid faster, you can write as many as you want, you have total control over your book and there are some readers that love self published books.
Though watch out for the smiley. She is an opinionated loud-mouth.


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## storyteller (Feb 3, 2014)

I will say that KKR and DWS's WIBBOW is valuable, and if I'd bothered to take it much more seriously, I wouldn't have to rewrite and republish the work in my current shameful sig under new pennames*.  I would have three or four story-verses with enough finished stories in them to experiment with optimizing for what short story market there is in indieville.  And I'd probably be accumulating a lot more episodes than five for a year long serial to release around the middle of next year.  

Instead I was unprofessional and paid for it, as going the professional route now will be harder and I STILL have to keep on writing anyway (because def. can't finish any story of any length without writing).  

"Professional" doesn't even mean no typos or decent editing, but it does mean genre-appropriate cover, genre-appropriate blurb and a sample/look inside that captures interest immediately.  There was a book people were complaining about that had those things, but it also had a bunch of typos and spelling errors.  But it was professional, it hit the baselines, and well, it was selling like cakes of hot.  Probably still is!

*It's easier to just let the clock run out than risk accidentally going wider because I forgot I started out with everything in Select.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

No Cat said:


> I fully believe not every book or every writer is designed to do well in indie publishing. There is still a place for taking a book to a trad pub and selling it that way, because there are kinds of books and kinds of markets that trad is still the best vehicle for. There is no shame in gathering information, deciding what you want to write most, and realizing that indie publishing won't serve your needs.


Yes, and I often cite the example of textbooks, for which a massive sales force is necessary to hand-sell books to college professors. That will be probably be the last bastion of traditional publishing to yield any ground to the indie revolution.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Cherise Kelley said:


> 3/20


I identified 4 out of the 20 as romance...


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

No Cat said:


> I identified 4 out of the 20 as romance...


Point is, of course it's worth writing anything other than romance.

When I'm done with my current series (which are projects that I've wanted to write for a long time), I'm totally going to write Scifi/UF thrillers under a male name.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

That should be fun. SF or UF though? They aren't remotely the same thing 

Why a male name? I've thought about using one for my thrillers, too, curious if readers would care, but it is hard make the choice. Feels somehow like I'm just caving to stereotypes. Sigh.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

No Cat said:


> That should be fun. SF or UF though? They aren't remotely the same thing
> 
> Why a male name? I've thought about using one for my thrillers, too, curious if readers would care, but it is hard make the choice. Feels somehow like I'm just caving to stereotypes. Sigh.


Yep. Sigh. But yesterday I spent some time in the top 20 thriller-subcategories in the UK. Every other single damn writer there was male.

I've got plans for a UF thriller set in Sydney, involving political crime and corruption (yup, just like real life), but with were-possums and I also have ideas for SF thrillers. The tone would be similar, and both would be thriller first, and then SFF.


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## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

One of the traps that I see pretty much everywhere is generalizing from a small sample. Above, someone noted that you can be plenty successful self-publishing other genres than romance, and the top 20 sales chart was used as the example. However, from what I could tell, the only _self-published_ books in the top twenty were romances. The rest were published out of New York or London publishing houses.

Does this mean that you can only be successful with romance as a self-publisher? Of course not, further upthread there is an example of someone selling $100K/year in a non-romance genre. However, it does mean that it is very easy to get misled by the complicated nature of publishing and selling books. You have to look pretty hard at multiple scenarios to really get a good view of what is working and what isn't, because the reality is that what works in one genre won't work in another. Or one technique might work for a single book but not for a series. Or, to the original point, there is a wide swatch of books being sold at a significant volume, and looking at one portion will not give you the full view.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Actually, Jake- of the romances in the top 20, only Deborah Bladon and R.L. Mathewson are self-published. The others are Amazon imprint or trad books.  Other self-published authors in the top 20 include AG Riddle with post-apoc SF and Donna Mabry with memoir/non-fiction (that might be Amazon published, but it doesn't look like it and it certainly isn't from a trad publisher).  So that makes 5 of the top 20, ie 25%, self-published. Not bad at all.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

I think that we're often talking about different types of writers here.

If you want to be a pro hack (not a pejorative), then you go where the money is. That was true in the pulp past, and that will be true in the future. The books pay the mortgage, and if everything goes well, makes you a whole lot of hay.

Personally, I salute you pro hacks. I just can't do that.

Then there's us genre dinks. We can write our own genres, but we just aren't interested in writing to the trend. Call it boredom or ADHD, or give it any label, no amount of advice will make us change what we write. Even if we could turn our strategy and hit the top markets, its six months until we can get a book out, and 18-24 months to have a series.

And then there's slow writers who take years to produce a single book. Slow writers shouldn't chase hot markets. They can't rely on perma-frees. It'll be six years before they have a series.

Every group are indie authors and deserve to be indie if they choose. Unfortunately, most of the board's advice simply doesn't apply to us. 

A year from now, when I have enough books in my series, I do see some advice still working. I see audiences still liking series. That's been true for decades. I see good categorizing and keywording as important. Covers still need to rock. Great blurb. Great sample. Pretty much all the stuff that's been known for decades in traditional publishing.

I don't know if Amazon will still allow permafrees. I don't know which hot genre will cool down. I don't know how the algorithm will change. I don't know what KU will do. I don't even know if Amazon will start charging for virtual shelf space. 

I presume that advertising will still work, with the caveat that the market rewards what hot and tends to ignore what's not. I'm sure that Bookbub will still keep rocking next year, if you can get in, because they pay attention to what's hot. It's a good model, the competition is heating up, and that whole mess is ripe for disruption. I expect Bookbub to also keep raising its prices, pricing itself out of more and more author's reach, and making insta-profits harder, because they are smart and because corporations will pay them for velocity. Once corporations learn to advertise their backlist, it's going to get ugly out there.


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## Luis dA (Jun 1, 2014)

Regarding the perfectly sound advice of writing to the hot genre, trend, and or niche, I just hope that the next writer who thinks that’s all he/she needs to do now to realize big sales, considers a little item: they must know the genre. 

The budding new writer of – pick a subgenre – must write in the way the readers of that genre want and expect. The book cover and the rest of the promo materials may be lined up in a row and tied with gift ribbon, but what’s inside the package, does it meet the demands that the readers of that specific genre insist on? You’d be a talented writer indeed to be able to write in the style of any ol’ genre. When picking the trend or genre that’s going to make you successful, you should first be sure that you are able to write in the style that the readers of those books expect.


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## Alyson (Apr 26, 2012)

This thread has morphed into a discussion of genres, trends and writing to genres. Which is a discussion I really like, so here goes (even if perhaps this should be part of a new or another thread....)

I have a friend who munches her way through 5 thrillers per month like I munch through Pringles (if I make the mistake of buying them). She reads Michael Connelly, Lee Child, etc. (although not Patterson).

It's not all she reads, but it's all the fiction she reads. She focuses on the big-name hardback thriller writers right now. She buys them as soon as she sees them in Costco (priced way under their list price), then resells the hardbacks to Half-Price Books when she's done. She will sometimes pick up a thriller hardback there at Half-Price (a backlist title of an author she reads or she perhaps samples a new author.) She seems to use hardback publishing as a signal of quality and has sampled nearly all of the authors published this way. 

She does have a kindle, but uses it for reading non-fiction (including lots of self-published nonfiction since she has a taste for the conspiracy and alternative NF genres).

She's retiring soon, so I imagine she will speed her way through books more than ever.

So far her fiction needs have been met by the Big 5 publishers. She hasn't had to dig deep for her supply, like joining goodreads, or kboards or other readers' forums to find new writers.

She hasn't been presented with thriller Amazon also-bots because she hasn't been buying thrillers through Amazon. That's how the Big 5 has kept her. 

I think that's why Big 5 publishers currently dominate the top thriller placements.

My friend is used to reading hardbacks (they're not uncomfortable for her either in terms of weight or vision yet) and there's not much price differential between the Kindle price and the discounted hardback. It's also not a lot of trouble for her to hit Costco or Half Priced Books every week or two.

It's going to be interesting to see if/when she branches out into self-published thrillers now that she will have more time.


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## Nope (Jun 25, 2012)

.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Side comment: I read Dean's recent blog entry and it sounds like he may have read this thread or at least had it pointed out to him.



> In short, Kris and I both make our living writing and selling books. And we have employees who also make their living from our writing and selling books as well. So as indie writers, are we successful? Yeah, I think so. And it's been this way now for three years and not letting up next year.
> 
> You may not agree with what Kris and I say in those workshops and lectures or on our blogs, and that's fine. *Every writer is different. But at least learn to listen with an open mind to someone who has been around a long time and knows the business.
> 
> ...


Anyway, back to the thread and all the nuggets of gold in here. Definitely bookmarked for deeper mining.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Ha. His response made me laugh and laugh. Wish I could say more, but there are people I don't want to get in trouble. Let's just say that DWS is great at fiction


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## No longer seen (Aug 17, 2013)

Speaking of KKR advice and writing to genre demands . . . I can't link to it, but in some blog post Kris advocates that when we're actually writing,
we should be artists and not businesspeople at all. You don't put your businessperson hat on until the work is finished, and then you market it.

As she points out, and I think this is often overlooked but valid, is what readers want is the Same Thing -- BUT Different. 

That's why so many series seem to peter out after a dynamite start. The subsequent books repeat the same old, same old, without anything new.

Now, I'm not certain I understand this as she meant it. According to DWS, when he sits down to write a new work, he not only doesn't know what it's going to be about, he doesn't even know the genre. 

I can't get my mind around that. I suspect almost all writers, even die-hard pantsers, will begin with some idea in their heads. I suspect Kris does too. She sits down with the intent to write another Smokey Dalton novel (for example) or whatever. 

I can choose the hot genre, then get inspired.

I see no fundamental contradiction between the advice to write a hot genre and to dig for artistic inspiration. Choose a hot genre, know what the readers want -- and then give it to them, only MORE and DIFFERENT. 

Genres rise and fall. Lord of the Rings was first published in England in the early 50s. Although it seems incredible, at that time only a few people appreciated it. It wasn't until the early baby boomers reached college age in the early to mid 60s that it became popular. It didn't even have a paperback edition until Don Wollheim at Ace Books discovered Tolkien slipped up on copyright registration (after 10 years, he probably assumed the trilogy was dead), and published the trilogy without paying anything. Ian and Betty Ballantine got Tolkien's agreement to publish an authorized edition, and that was the beginning of the modern fantasy field.

But it still took years of the Ballantines reprinting classic fantasy from the past. They eventually discovered Joy Chant and Katherine Kurtz, but 
remained an outlier until the del Reys took over and published Terry Brooks's first novel SWORD OF SHANNARA in 1977.

Diana Gabaldon pretty much invented the time travel romance genre in 1991.

The point is, you can "sneak" new and stuff through using established genres/categories and keywords. But if you can impress readers, you can own the hot genre. (until a million other authors imitate you).


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## Luis dA (Jun 1, 2014)

Thanks, Richard, for this insightful post on what’s been written about in this thread regarding genre, and particularly on “owning” a genre or developing a subgenre. 

What you attribute to Dean Wesley Smith saying about starting a book without even knowing what genre he’s writing in, I think will surprise a lot of people. I don’t mean because it’s this individual claiming it, but because I think people assume that to be successful, writing to a preselected genre is a basic requirement.

It’s irrelevant to me if Smith or anyone else writes his/her books this way or not. One thing that’s interesting to me is that if you look at the best sellers in the major genres, you see many of the same books appear spread across many genres. Check the first page of Amazon best sellers in say thrillers, and you’ll likely also see many the titles in mystery, action adventure, crime, fantasy, literary, and some also in horror, and even romance subgenres such as suspense romance, and so on. 

Clearly, this doesn’t apply to all books. The phenomenon may also be more common in best sellers because by definition, they are likely to draw from a broader base of readers, and so many different perceptions may identify a book as falling into many genres, but I wonder if many authors in fact go wide when it comes to writing for a genre. Anyway, thanks for the post.


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## Dactyl (Dec 27, 2014)

No Cat said:


> I learned by reading that blog that the 50,000+ copies I've sold at .99 means I'm failing. Whew. I was so confused by these huge checks I've been getting that I thought I was succeeding. I'm glad KKR could set me straight


When you sell a book for $.99 on Amazon, your royalty for that book is $.35. That calculates into a gross of $17,500 for 50,000 books. That's gross. Surely, you had expenses and it took time to write that book or books. Since it is unlikely that your works sold themselves, you had to spend something on getting the word out, probably from advertising and maybe even some giveaways from which you derived no direct revenue. Your net is south of $17,500 and you still have to pay taxes.

Failing is a relative term. So is success. "Different strokes for different folks."


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## Jake Kerr (Aug 6, 2014)

Dactyl, you need to look at total revenue, not the revenue from a single book. Do you know how much revenue was generated by the sell through in that series that started with those 50,000 first readers? A LOT.


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## RBK (Nov 28, 2014)

Dactyl said:


> When you sell a book for $.99 on Amazon, your royalty for that book is $.35. That calculates into a gross of $17,500 for 50,000 books. That's gross. Surely, you had expenses and it took time to write that book or books. Since it is unlikely that your works sold themselves, you had to spend something on getting the word out, probably from advertising and maybe even some giveaways from which you derived no direct revenue. Your net is south of $17,500 and you still have to pay taxes.
> 
> Failing is a relative term. So is success. "Different strokes for different folks."


Dactyl,

Your logic applies if only one book is on sale. But what we're talking about here is the first book in a series. A loss leader.

Let's put it this way: if you sell 50,000 books at 99c of a book that is the first in a series of 3+ books... well, you'll be in the money simply from the sell through of those kinds of numbers. Massively.

If you sell 5,000 books at $4.99 of a first in a series, thus equalling the $17,500 total stated, with no expenditure... I want to know your method. 

The idea is that the later books make up for the loss of income on the first book. Sure, it's hit and miss. But it's actually easier to make $17,500 from one loss leader book and a few well priced sequels than it is to make $17,500 from one full priced book and sequels.

In my opinion and experience, anyway.


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## Dactyl (Dec 27, 2014)

jakedfw said:


> Dactyl, you need to look at total revenue, not the revenue from a single book. Do you know how much revenue was generated by the sell through in that series that started with those 50,000 first readers? A LOT.


First, I don't know what A LOT means.

Second, there was no information given about whether that 50,000 figure applied to one book or more. As far as I can tell, after subtracting taxes and expenses, that net revenue will buy the same amount of groceries regardless of how it was generated.

Third, if the poster thinks he is a success, then I will not be the one who says he isn't. He appears to be happy, so it's difficult to argue with how he feels about his efforts. I wish him well and hope he does even better on his future endeavors.


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## RicardoFayet (Nov 12, 2014)

Have you also checked out her previous one on what big traditional publishers learned in 2014? It's really interesting as well as she takes this from the publishers' perspective and ends up highlighting exactly what they're doing wrong: more draconian contracts (because eBooks are now seen as long-term assets): http://kriswrites.com/2014/12/17/business-musings-what-traditional-publishing-learned-in-2014/


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## Dactyl (Dec 27, 2014)

RKC said:


> If you sell 5,000 books at $4.99 of a first in a series, thus equalling the $17,500 total stated, with no expenditure... I want to know your method.


Most people, especially new authors, seem not to realize that there are expenditures involved. The traditional publishers know it well and are probably laughing at all the mistakes made by the Indies.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Dactyl said:


> Most people, especially new authors, seem not to realize that there are expenditures involved. The traditional publishers know it well and are probably laughing at all the mistakes made by the Indies.


I'm not one of them, but there are many people on this board for whom expenditures equal nothing but time, and not much of that. They write and publish a novel every month, using nothing but Amazon's algorithms to promote their book. They do their own covers, editing, formatting, and layout, and do these well. $17,500 a month is awfully good money.

To actually be on topic for a moment, DWS and KKR are proponents of this DIY approach.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Cherise Kelley said:


> I'm not one of them, but there are many people on this board for whom expenditures equal nothing but time, and not much of that. They write and publish a novel every month, using nothing but Amazon's algorithms to promote their book. They do their own covers, editing, formatting, and layout, and do these well. $17,500 a month is awfully good money.
> 
> To actually be on topic for a moment, DWS and KKR are proponents of this DIY approach.


Agree completely - $17,500 income is nothing to sneeze at, in any context. But to provide just one: that amount is far more than what the standard advance for an unknown author's first book usually was ($5000+), and earning that much a year in 10%-royalties would be good news indeed.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

Dactyl said:


> <snip>The traditional publishers know it well and are probably laughing at all the mistakes made by the Indies.


And then they weep bitter tears for all the mistakes they make themselves.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Dactyl said:


> Most people, especially new authors, seem not to realize that there are expenditures involved. The traditional publishers know it well and are probably laughing at all the mistakes made by the Indies.


Yes most do realize the expenditures. KKR said 50,000 99 cent sales is a failure. 
Thing is if you have many books and price one at 99 cents and the rest at 4.99 that little bitty 17,000 less 30% for taxes and 15% for other overhead will bring in sales on your higher priced books. This is sales you would not have without your 99 cent book. Especially if you are good enough to get a decent sale through rate.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Expenses?

You mean $1500 for editing and covers (if you don't do your own, which I do)
Or you mean $350 for a Bookbub ad. That's the most expensive place you could find to advertise that has any kind of effect. All the rest are cheaper. 

I think $17500 is a pretty good return for that.


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## Shelley K (Sep 19, 2011)

No Cat said:


> I completely abandoned everything they had taught me about marketing and business . . . .
> 
> How did it work out? I made nearly six figures in the last six months of this year. With the money that will get paid out in the first two months of 2015, I'm almost to six figures for 2015 as well and it ain't even here yet.


But, _babe_, you're doing it _wrong_. *shakes fist at sky*

One of these days you'll get your shit together, I hope.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Dactyl said:


> First, I don't know what A LOT means.
> 
> Second, there was no information given about whether that 50,000 figure applied to one book or more. As far as I can tell, after subtracting taxes and expenses, that net revenue will buy the same amount of groceries regardless of how it was generated.
> 
> Third, if the poster thinks he is a success, then I will not be the one who says he isn't. He appears to be happy, so it's difficult to argue with how he feels about his efforts. I wish him well and hope he does even better on his future endeavors.


Um, I believe you quoted me. I was saying what I said with extreme sarcasm.  See, I have a series that I launched in Aug this year. Book 1 is .99 and has been since day one. It has sold very close to 50k copies. So I was sort of using my real numbers and experience in this thread, using my own sell-through, and pointing out that, contrary to the weird conclusions KKR seems to draw, 50k sales of a book at .99 is, in fact, pretty darn successful and a good foundation for long-term gains and growth. Perhaps you should read the rest of the thread, where multiple people including myself break down why this is and what selling 50,000 copies of a first book, even at .99, can mean.

As for expenses, I've spent about $2000 across all four of my main titles on covers, editing, and formatting. So far since beginning of August up until today, that series (with a first book at .99, second at 2.99, third and fourth at 3.99, all lower prices than KKR/DWS advise) has earned me about $115,000. So... 2k investment for 113k return? I'm not a shark on Shark Tank, but I think my margins are awesome, yeah? I'm psyched and I have bigger plans for next year. If/when the market changes, I'm ready with lots of ideas and an open mind about what to try next.

So yeah. I was being seriously sarcastic about 50k sales being somehow not a recipe for longer-term success, because I think that statement is just silly as heck and completely ignores the actual current market and what actual indies are doing and how we are building and growing our businesses. It's condescending, in the end, to think that we write to trends or price without a plan or without studying the markets and making informed decisions (as much as you can in a business that depends on reader taste) before choosing our strategies. But, in my opinion, Kris's whole blog post was incredibly condescending. It's her schtick, I suppose (she's like that in person, too, so it might just be her personality, who knows?).


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## No longer seen (Aug 17, 2013)

What I find humorous is that KKR and DWS advocate writers who have only one book published don't market. That's because the effort and expense of promoting just one title just isn't worth it. So, they say, write the next book. Don't promote until you have 6 or 10 - which is probably waiting too long.

And that makes a lot of sense. Because any customers you acquire can buy only that one book. 

If you have five more or whatever, happy readers can make you a lot more money in return for the marketing effort and expenses.

(I would add it may still be worth it IF -- you are also building a mailing list AND are nearing completion if your second novel.)

In KKR's recent post, she implicitly criticized writers who call themselves a success for getting 50,000 sales of a 99 cents without considering they may have a bigger plan. 

No Cat obviously did have that plan, and it's working for her.


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2014)

Richard Stooker said:


> What I find humorous is that KKR and DWS advocate writers who have only one book published don't market. That's because the effort and expense of promoting just one title just isn't worth it. So, they say, write the next book. Don't promote until you have 6 or 10 - which is probably waiting too long.


It definitely is too long. I followed that advice for my first couple of years, and now I've got several backlist titles that aren't really pulling their weight. It's going to take a marketing push to get those titles moving again, and that push is going to be a lot harder now than it would have been back when the books were released.

Don't get me wrong--the advice to just keep writing is good advice. Where the advice goes bad is to focus on writing at the expense of marketing. The two are closely connected, and you neglect either one at your peril.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

No Cat said:


> As for expenses, I've spent about $2000 across all four of my main titles on covers, editing, and formatting. So far since beginning of August up until today, that series (with a first book at .99, second at 2.99, third and fourth at 3.99, all lower prices than KKR/DWS advise) has earned me about $115,000. So... 2k investment for 113k return? I'm not a shark on Shark Tank, but I think my margins are awesome, yeah? I'm psyched and I have bigger plans for next year. If/when the market changes, I'm ready with lots of ideas and an open mind about what to try next.


I don't see how anyone - including KKR - could deny that you have been a success, and a very impressive success at that. I guess the only point to be made in defense of KKR's position is, would you have been more of a success if you followed a different strategy? Or, is your success for some reason an exception to the rule, because most rules have exceptions. But, since those questions are impossible to answer - short of setting up an alternate universe in which wrote exactly the same, but charged more for your books - your success must be admitted as a counter-example to what KKR is urging as the best pricing strategy.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

PaulLev said:


> I don't see how anyone - including KKR - could deny that you have been a success, and a very impressive success at that. I guess the only point to be made in defense of KKR's position is, would you have been more of a success if you followed a different strategy? Or, is your success for some reason an exception to the rule, because most rules have exceptions. But, since those questions are impossible to answer - short of setting up an alternate universe in which wrote exactly the same, but charged more for your books - your success must be admitted as a counter-example to what KKR is urging as the best pricing strategy.


Actually, in some ways, I can answer this. Because, perhaps pretty stupidly, I spent years following their advice. I started self-publishing in 2010 (a few months before Kris and Dean did). At first, I just tested the waters (same a many people do, K&D included, I put up a few things and just sat back and watched to see what would happen). By early 2011, I felt there was something to this self-pub thing and got brave enough to publish a novel. By this point, KKR&DWS were self-publishing as well and dispensing advice on how to do it to us, their students. I listened to them because hey, they were my mentors and my friends. I did what they said to do. When they said raise prices and treat yourself like a professional, I raised prices. I made up a publishing company when they said to do that. I learned how to do my own covers because they said to do that. In late 2011 I put up a book under a pen name and I was reading the Kboards, which KKR&DWS were already dismissive of at that point, and people were doing this thing with Amazon where they were price-matching books to free and seeing a big sales bounce off the back when they came to paid. Ignoring what my mentors said, I did this. My pen name book gave away 20k copies in a few days and when it bounced back to paid (at 5.99, mind you), I was selling 50-100 a day for a while. Ah, the good old days of 2011. 

The next part is mostly my fault. I freaked out, didn't think I could manage to write another good book in that genre and that it had been a fluke, and I wrote a novella in another genre instead. To this day I've never followed up that book. In 2012 I started putting out lots of short stories and novellas, pricing and packaging them the way I was being taught to do so by KKR&DWS (lots of collections, they said to do an "a" and a "b" side collection with each set of short stories to get more products onto your product page, writing whatever I felt like because they said write first and worry about what market it might have afterward, pricing everything at 2.99 for shorts and 5.99-7.99 for novels because they said to value my work and got mad at anyone who did that "KDP Select BS" or was in the ".99 ghetto" etc). I took flak from them for hiring my covers done sometimes, Dean told me at one point I was just wasting money by getting custom, nice cover art, but I have a pretty good artistic eye and that was a sticking point for me since I wanted my covers to look like trad covers, and felt Dean's were miles away from there.

Guess what happened? I released more and more work. I sold fewer and fewer books. By January 2013, I had over 40 titles up. In January, I sold 18 books. Period. Made about 40 bucks. (I believe I said this before...)
Panicking, literally sick with an illness that would nearly kill me and put me on bed rest for six months, I decided I had nothing to lose and tried some of that "Kboards sh*t" KKR/DWS always told me not to bother with. I surveyed the bestseller lists in my genre, looking at their pricing, and I dropped my prices to match those books. I set some things perma-free. My sales tripled. The money I made tripled. Changing nothing else, not covers, not blurbs, no ads run, nothing. I started a mailing list, which is now over 1000 names strong. I added a call to action for reviews and started actually getting some (Dean refers to calls to action for reviews as begging, heh).

I brought my results to them, tried to share how it had worked with KKR/DWS and my fellow students and I was silenced (my posts literally not let through for people to see on the private list the workshop attendees are on) and banned after I refused to let Dean tell me my sales had gotten better because I'd become a better writer (he couldn't explain how books that were two to three years old had suddenly become better written just by dropping the price and got super pissy with me when I pointed out the cognitive dissonance and bad logic going on with that, ha).

Now, with fewer products than I had a year ago, I'm making 1000x the income. I have abandoned most of what they taught me about marketing and getting my work to readers, with huge and quantifiable success. That's all I have. How different my life went after just a few months of ditching their advice compared to years of following it. That's why I offer up my experience here. I am a walking, breathing example of how poorly their marketing and publishing advice works, and what can happen when you embrace ideas of looking at the now and what is working now and trying things like free and low prices and writing with your market already in mind etc. I don't think there is any one right way, because there isn't. In the end, nobody knows nothing. My experience, my observations of my fellow KKR/DWS students, my observations of their business and sales/rankings, has shown that their methods do not seem to work for anyone, not when taken wholesale the way they sell them. (Writing a lot is hardly advice you should pay 300 bucks a pop for, go look up Heinlein's Rules and follow them. There, I saved everyone the money of a workshop with Dean, hehe)

And my issue with them selling workshops about how to do this stuff is that they are not honest about their results or the results of their followers. It's one thing for people to come and decide for themselves, but if you don't get good information to base those decisions off of, how are you supposed to make good choices? If I tell you I'm making a million a year flipping real estate and you can pay me to teach you how, isn't it fair to question what houses I've flipped and why for all I say I'm doing well, there are no specific things I can point to etc? People on the net can say a lot of things (and yes, I realize the irony since I'm basically posting anon here), but when someone is selling you something, I think it is fair to ask more rigorous questions about what exactly they are selling and how it works for the people buying. What I'm saying here is that, in my own opinion and after years of my own experience, the marketing and publishing advice that KKR and DWS is selling doesn't work.

Personally, if you really want to give yourself a leg up and you are set on taking a workshop from them, I recommend the Character Voice one. I took it in person, but I hear the online version is good too. It was the single best workshop I've ever taken. I think anyone could benefit from that, because writing compelling characters (and setting) will help sell your work. Their craft advice is still pretty dead on (though I'm an out-liner and I revise as I go, so I don't do everything they teach in that regard either, but was never banned for saying so, just got some head-shakes from Dean about it).

That's like my ten cents. Ha.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Thank you for that detailed account, No Cat.  I sincerely hope you treble your sales across the board in 2015.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

PaulLev said:


> Thank you for that detailed account, No Cat. I sincerely hope you treble your sales across the board in 2015.


I'd be okay if they stayed where they are this month (though I'll be releasing at least 6 books in 2015, so here's hoping they grow!). I'm doing just fine for myself now. I only kick myself for all those lost years following poor advice, especially since every says *those* were the gold rush years, hah.


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2014)

What genre do you write in, no cat? And how did you bring back sales of the old stuff you published under Kris and Dean's model? Was it just a combination of perma-free, lower prices, and asking for reviews, or was there something else that served as a catalyst? After following their misguided marketing advice for the last couple of years, I find myself in a somewhat similar position with several backlist titles that don't sell nearly as well as I think they could.


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## Tommy Muncie (Dec 8, 2014)

I'm a little late coming to this thread, but here's my two cents:

I enjoyed reading the article but it didn't really tell me much I didn't already know or hadn't heard before. Like a lot of articles about publishing and writing that get lots of hits, I can't help but this one's preaching to the converted a little. That said, I don't see anything wrong with that. I like reading articles with firm opinions, because everyone says them in a different way. Having read some of the criticisms in this thread, a lot of them are perfectly valid. I was quick to cheer for this article and then read through some of this thread as an exercise in thinking again. That's part of what I like about being into writing and self-publishing: filtering the advice, getting ideas and then making up my own mind. 

So the goldrush is over? For me there was never a goldrush in the first place. I spent ten years writing for a group of friends on the internet and just liking the feedback and the attention and I don't mind admitting that. I write partly for my ego and I've always admitted it. I couldn't care how much money I make from it; I have a day-job I love and getting a review from someone who got my book during a free promo is just as good as getting one from someone who paid for it. But I'm also, as Kris Rusch puts it, a 'tough competitor.' If I have something I can sell, then I'll make my best efforts to sell it, and make the product as good as I can before I offer it up. We can read these sorts of articles and get the tips and create and market as well as we can, but in the end there's a certain amount of luck in success. I'd like to become a mid-lister and make enough money to pay the bills and change my lifestyle a little, and I'm supposedly doing the right things to make it happen, but I still have to live with the prospect that it might not.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Joe Vasicek said:


> What genre do you write in, no cat? And how did you bring back sales of the old stuff you published under Kris and Dean's model? Was it just a combination of perma-free, lower prices, and asking for reviews, or was there something else that served as a catalyst? After following their misguided marketing advice for the last couple of years, I find myself in a somewhat similar position with several backlist titles that don't sell nearly as well as I think they could.


I mostly write in various flavors of fantasy these days. My main series is urban fantasy (which is the new stuff I wrote this year following my new plan, ie writing with reader expectation and market in mind). There are four urban fantasy books. First is .99, second is 2.99, third and fourth are 3.99, fifth and onward will be 4.99 (they get longer as the series goes on). That series sells thousands and thousands a month.

Secondary series, which are older stuff, are epic fantasy, fantasy/mystery, and dark fairytale romance. The epic fantasy is novellas (yeah, whoops, epic fantasy novella, who does that?!) and there are five of them (well, four and a bundle). First is perma-free, rest are in KU except the bundle which isn't in Select, just exclusive to Amazon. They sell about 200-300 a month each, counting borrows. First free, second .99, third and fourth 2.99, bundle 3.99. The dark fairytale and the fantasy/mystery series each only have one book (something I'm fixing this next year). Fairytale one sells about 50-80 copies a month at 3.99. Fantasy/mystery sells about 250-350 copies a month at 3.99.

I also have four short story collections that are a mix of science fiction and fantasy, most of which sell 15-30 copies a month, though one this month is looking like it will sell about 80 copies, which is really good for a short story collection in my experience. Those are priced at 2.99 and 3.99. I don't mind that they don't sell much because most of the stories in them sold to magazines or anthologies before I put them up myself, so I've already earned a few grand on the contents before they saw the self-published light of day. I had more collections up (some are still on non-amazon sites) but took them down because they didn't sell and were cluttering up my author page. I also have a couple novellas and some short stories for free, but I am camping those like a hawk and have already removed some that didn't get at least 100 downloads a month. I figure if a book can't even give itself away to 100 readers a month, it ain't worth keeping up. 

Some books have a bigger market than other books. It's a fact of the business. My epic fantasy novellas (I laugh every time I think that or say it aloud, haha) will never be books that sell 5k each a month. Just ain't gonna happen. The scope of the story, the market for 15k DnD-esque fantasy adventures, etc just won't reward those books with huge sales. I'm okay with that. I have other ideas that have more potential and I can put out novellas in this series until it is done whenever I need a break from writing other stuff. It's an act of love that pays me about one to two grand a month or so. Won't make me rich, but I like them, so I keep writing them in my spare time. Same with the sequel to the dark fairytale. That sequel is backburnered because I know it will sell maybe 1000 copies ever and take a few years to do so, so it isn't much of a priority. When I want a break from other stuff, I'll finish it because I like the story and book 2 will end the series. The fantasy/mystery I think has real potential since I get a lot of fan mail for it, so this next year along with more UF (a no-brainer to keep that series going, even if it weren't fun to write, which fortunately it rocks my socks to work on), I'm going to write a couple more of the fantasy/mystery series. I bet I can get the series selling a few thousand copies a month with 2-3 more books out in it and with then running the first book as a loss-leader and some advertising, so I think it has good potential and since I already have outlines and covers for six more books, it is also a no-brainer for me to pursue writing it alongside my main series.

Basically what I would do with backlist is evaluate where it falls in terms of genre and expectation, then study the bestsellers in that genre (and the books that sell well that are most similar). Look at how the covers look, how the blurbs are structured, what keywords the authors are using, the pricing, etc. Then make adjustments, pick whatever is selling best, and write more of that. Or write something totally new, this time paying attention to what the market for that book might be and what reader expectation for that market might be. As simple and stupid as it sounds and as hard as it is to actual nail regularly, the key to selling books really does come down to "have you written something people want to read?" because if you haven't, no amount of marketing, beautiful covers, or etc will sell that book.

If you figure out how to do that consistently, come back and tell me 

*and now I've given more than enough info to figure out who I am. Time to dodge the downvotes, hehe!


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

No Cat, just wanted to let you know that I'm looking forward to more installments in your fantasy/mystery series, cause I loved the first. Not that I don't like your urban fantasy, too.


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## RBK (Nov 28, 2014)

Thanks, No Cat. Just... thanks. For everything. I love your take on things. Really enlightening and eye-opening. Here's to 2015.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Yay, No Cat. Your posts should be required reading for newbies, because you laid it all out there beautifully.

I just don't understand the position of KKR, I really don't. All evidence points to loss leaders + marketing to being the cornerstones of success. They were certainly my cornerstones as well. Before I went permafree, I was struggling to move a copy of either of my books every other day. I even completed the entire Illusions series, and I still struggled. I was making a couple of hundred dollars a month. I cried a lot. 

I set book one of my Illusions to permafree, and I instantly quadrupled my income. I managed to get a BB ad for Book One of the lllusions series, and I was able to become a full-time writer. It was that simple and that fast. Now, I have three series and three permafrees. They kind of wane when I don't promote for a long time, but, since May, I haven't gone below $7000 a month, and often went much higher. I made $140,000 this year. Not No Cat status (yet), but enough that I can support my elderly parents and mentally ill sister and go to the doctor whenever I want. And take my dogs to the vet whenever I need to. And have niceties that I could never afford before, like mani-pedis. And give money to animal charities. And stuff that I couldn't even think of doing before. So, yeah - happy about that. 

And that's the thing - each of us writers have financial obligations. Without permafree and good marketing, I wouldn't be able to help my elderly parents and sister. My mother is sick and I'm able to get her the help that she needs because I was able to move her closer to me. That's worth its weight in gold right there. And permafree and marketing made that possible. 

That's another reason why I get so burned whenever I see posters making snide remarks about permafree (you know who you are). It works, it will continue to work, and whether a writer wants to use it is nobody's business but that writer's. Period. I don't believe that it devalues books anymore than giving free samples at Costco devalues ravioli or whatever. If you're good, then people will read the freebie and they will buy more. I'm living proof of that.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Ha. I have no magical answers. Just pretty sure I didn't learn the things KKR says us indies learned, cause I already knew the ones that were obvious and don't bother with the ones that are just her saying words to make herself feel better. 

Yeah, most of my posting history is still there. It's sort of embarrassing, actually, because it is full of me touting KKR/DWS philosophy and defending them at every turn up until about a year ago when I started to realize how poorly things had gone for them and really look critically at my own results. So my posting history is a school in how deluded I was about some things, I guess. Probably people should give it a miss. Sigh.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

No Cat said:


> Ha. I have no magical answers. Just pretty sure I didn't learn the things KKR says us indies learned, cause I already knew the ones that were obvious and don't bother with the ones that are just her saying words to make herself feel better.
> 
> Yeah, most of my posting history is still there. It's sort of embarrassing, actually, because it is full of me touting KKR/DWS philosophy and defending them at every turn up until about a year ago when I started to realize how poorly things had gone for them and really look critically at my own results. So my posting history is a school in how deluded I was about some things, I guess. Probably people should give it a miss. Sigh.


Actually, I think that your posting history is a good example of your evolution. You should be proud on how far you've come!!!!!!!


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

OK, folks....so much for the holiday spirit. I think this is the third thread I've locked today. There have been no reports for this thread, and I just started reading it a bit ago.

People who have been warned against name calling in other threads are continuing to do so. We'll be reviewing this thread and the other locked threads.

It seems that many who have been posting in this thread and the others have either not read Forum Decorum at all or not read it lately. I encourage you to do so.

EDIT: OK, I've removed posts that called people cowards and others that quoted or referred to those posts. I'm reopening the thread. Chill, people.

Betsy
KB Mod


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## Dactyl (Dec 27, 2014)

No Cat said:


> I learned by reading that blog that the 50,000+ copies I've sold at .99 means I'm failing.


She didn't write that. What she wrote was:

"Sure, your first book can have 50,000 free downloads. Is that success?
Not to a long-term writer.
Sure, your first book can have 50,000 99-cent downloads. Is that success?
Not to a long-term writer."

Did you read the whole blog or just the part with which you identified?

- See more at: http://kriswrites.com/2014/12/23/business-musings-things-indie-writers-learned-in-2014/#sthash.drj7h6NG.dpuf


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## LondonCalling (Dec 19, 2014)

Dactyl said:


> She didn't write that. What she wrote was:
> 
> "Sure, your first book can have 50,000 free downloads. Is that success?
> Not to a long-term writer.
> ...


To be fair, that is a pretty subjective number. 50,000 books at $.99 is a pretty good start to long-term success. On the other hand, selling 50,000 books each year for five years in a row would be pretty nice, but does not indicate that sales will continue like that. If they fall off, it may be back to the day job (or however someone defines no longer being a long-term success).


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Dactyl said:


> She didn't write that. What she wrote was:
> 
> "Sure, your first book can have 50,000 free downloads. Is that success?
> Not to a long-term writer.
> ...


I misparaphrased. Or I read her words differently than you did. She is saying that 50,000 sales is not a success to a long term writer. Not a success means failure. Therefore yes she is calling 99 cent sales failures.

Now my question would be how many of her books consistently sell over 50,000 at any price.


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## Davout73 (Feb 20, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> Except I've never tried to use my short fiction as a way to get more sales. Seeing how hostile the whole SFF genre world is to self-publishing, I wouldn't hold your breath hoping for cross-pollination. I used my short fiction as look-see to try out if I liked selfpublishing.
> 
> I'm probably a poster-child for how someone can do reasonably OK while swimming completely free of any help books get from the Amazon recommendation engine


I don't think SFF readers are hostile to indie publishers at all.

Then again, SFWA needs to pull its own collective rear to into the 21st century for me to take it: A. Seriously, and B. as an organization that could help me.

Dav


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Davout73 said:


> I don't think SFF readers are hostile to indie publishers at all.
> 
> Then again, SFWA needs to pull its own collective rear to into the 21st century for me to take it: A. Seriously, and B. as an organization that could help me.
> 
> Dav


OK, I have no idea who you are, but I could be talking to a long-standing SFWA member here (aren't anonymous posters awesome?). Anyway, this is how I have experienced it. Having been a member of SFWA. Their self-pub discussion still goes along the lines of should I self-publish, and will it harm my trade career. Discussions are years and years behind what we're discussing here.

Going to cons and selling books there, I have seen many people who will only ever buy any of my books when I hand-sell them, in print, and only because it's me and they know me personally. Many blogs still accept only trads. When you go to the cons, the majority of noobs are still trying to find a trade publisher. This is my experience.

Also, I've come to realise that SFWA isn't ever going to help me. If you make the decision to self-publish, the only person who will help you is yourself.

It is totally true that the SFF lists are totally owned by self-publishers, but these people aren't the genre crowd that work the SFF cons. They're largely a different subset of writers.


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## Walter Spence (Nov 22, 2014)

As a current member of SFWA, I can attest that the process of changing the bylaws to allow qualifying indie writers to become members is being undergone as we speak (having voted myself in favor of the change when it was put forth to the membership recently). When it becomes official, all i's dotted and t's crossed, I expect the main page will be updated to reflect the new requirements.


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## Dactyl (Dec 27, 2014)

cinisajoy said:


> I misparaphrased. Or I read her words differently than you did. She is saying that 50,000 sales is not a success to a long term writer. Not a success means failure. Therefore yes she is calling 99 cent sales failures.


There are 50 shades of accomplishment between failure and success.

This link's content is my idea of a successful author and book.
http://www.ldnews.com/ci_26217224/up-down-staircase-writer-kaufman-dies-at-103


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Dactyl- I was being snarky in that initial post. Read the rest of my posts in this thread if you want the full breakdown of what I think about KKR and her methods, and the results from following those methods.

My definition of long term success is that I can make enough money NOW to keep doing what I do. I deal with the present.  Present climate says selling tons of a first book means more readers and down the line more money, so I do that. At the moment with how things seem to work, I sell more of that first book at .99 than I would at 5.99 or 7.99 (all prices I've tested in the past).  KKR and DWS have never tried .99 first in series. They've run a few short term sales with poor planning, in my opinion, sales that resulted in not great results because of a number of factors, and have decided based on that to preach that .99 and perma-free don't work as long-term strategies.  They believe a sale price should be for a day or three, not as a longer term loss leader. 

Which is fine. If you want to have their results, by all means, totally follow their methods. However, I'd recommend against paying 300 bucks a pop for marketing classes from them on how to sell 2 copies of a title a month on average. I mean, most people can probably manage to sell two copies of a book in a month without spending money to be told how, no? 

And also, if YOUR definition of personal success has nothing to do with number of sales or how much money your writing brings in, etc... great! Do whatever fulfills you.  When I speak about success, I use my own definition, as well as the definition that KKR/DWS purport, which is making a decent living or better with fiction writing. So that's the position I base my thoughts from. If that doesn't apply to you, definitely don't listen to me or anybody else who has a more commercial mindset, cause obviously we're coming from a different place in this business.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Walter Spence said:


> As a current member of SFWA, I can attest that the process of changing the bylaws to allow qualifying indie writers to become members is being undergone as we speak (having voted myself in favor of the change when it was put forth to the membership recently). When it becomes official, all i's dotted and t's crossed, I expect the main page will be updated to reflect the new requirements.


Exactly right.


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## Davout73 (Feb 20, 2014)

Patty Jansen said:


> OK, I have no idea who you are, but I could be talking to a long-standing SFWA member here (aren't anonymous posters awesome?). Anyway, this is how I have experienced it. Having been a member of SFWA. Their self-pub discussion still goes along the lines of should I self-publish, and will it harm my trade career. Discussions are years and years behind what we're discussing here.


Next to romance readers, SFF readers are some of the most voracious readers out there. The fact that many writers in SFWA would worry about their trade career, when indie SFF writers are flourishing, speaks volumes about their priorities. It's also a pretty good example of "irony" I've come across in awhile.



> Going to cons and selling books there, I have seen many people who will only ever buy any of my books when I hand-sell them, in print, and only because it's me and they know me personally. Many blogs still accept only trads. When you go to the cons, the majority of noobs are still trying to find a trade publisher. This is my experience.


 Well, the only thing to do is try and educate them. And honestly, for Scince Fiction readers to be a staid and stuck in the mud as you describe, well, its a nice addition to the "irony" example above.



> Also, I've come to realise that SFWA isn't ever going to help me. If you make the decision to self-publish, the only person who will help you is yourself.


 Thats because SFWA doesn't consider indie writers "real" writers. Although I bet 99% of them would denounce SFWA for say, Chris Nuttall's sales numbers. But, as with many things indie, there is a lot of help out there if you do go the indie route.



> It is totally true that the SFF lists are totally owned by self-publishers, but these people aren't the genre crowd that work the SFF cons. They're largely a different subset of writers.


 I'm not understanding this point?

Dav


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## Dactyl (Dec 27, 2014)

No Cat said:


> ... obviously we're coming from a different place in this business.


Very true.

Throughout my professional career I occasionally wrote magazine and newspaper articles (about three dozen plus or minus). I seldom asked for money although about half of what I wrote produced a check from $30 to $300. I wrote because I thought I had something to say. I am still writing on that basis.

Twenty years ago I became excited over an idea I had that I could write a fantasy that would turn the fairy tale world on its head. I decided to write it and only when I finished did I look for a professional editor, not for my English skills but for the story itself. The woman I picked and began working with is one of the best, if not the best, in the business. Some authors here scoff at editor fees, but I coughed up thousands. The reason? She has an impressive resume of editing over 100 NYT best sellers of all genres. I have written several drafts of the story and hope I am on my final one. I may not be. The story has evolved into something very different than what I started out with. Not a word, not a paragraph, not a page has not been untouched. I want to write a classic that will last and become part of our culture, not a "money maker." I am more interested in the final result than I am the money. I have allowed a few other people, mostly other authors, read it and they have encouraged me to publish it. I refuse to rush after all these years. I may end up, with regard to that book, financially in the hole. It remains to be seen. I have given myself one more year and then I will release it without fanfare. Yes, we come from different places.


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

Davout73 said:


> Thats because SFWA doesn't consider indie writers "real" writers.


Not for much longer, fortunately. A bunch of us members have been working to fix that and hopefully the vote currently in progress will go through and we'll be able to offer membership to indies who want it. Given that it's taken SFWA so long to get with the now, I don't know how many indie SFF writers will want to join. We'll find out in early 2015, I expect.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Dactyl said:


> Very true.
> 
> Throughout my professional career I occasionally wrote magazine and newspaper articles (about three dozen plus or minus). I seldom asked for money although about half of what I wrote produced a check from $30 to $300. I wrote because I thought I had something to say. I am still writing on that basis.
> 
> Twenty years ago I became excited over an idea I had that I could write a fantasy that would turn the fairy tale world on its head. I decided to write it and only when I finished did I look for a professional editor, not for my English skills but for the story itself. The woman I picked and began working with is one of the best, if not the best, in the business. Some authors here scoff at editor fees, but I coughed up thousands. The reason? She has an impressive resume of editing over 100 NYT best sellers of all genres. I have written several drafts of the story and hope I am on my final one. I may not be. The story has evolved into something very different than what I started out with. Not a word, not a paragraph, not a page has not been untouched. I want to write a classic that will last and become part of our culture, not a "money maker." I am more interested in the final result than I am the money. I have allowed a few other people, mostly other authors, read it and they have encouraged me to publish it. I refuse to rush after all these years. I may end up, with regard to that book, financially in the hole. It remains to be seen. I have given myself one more year and then I will release it without fanfare. Yes, we come from different places.


First, I think you mean that not a word or page has been untouched. You have an extra "not" in there that makes it sound like every word and page is untouched. 

Second, hey, if working with an editor, paying thousands, and spending almost as many years as I've been alive working on a single book makes you happy, that's good. I think we only have one life and should do things that make us happy.

But I wouldn't call it a long-term career strategy for being a professional writer.

Also, many of the classics we still read were written by people just trying to feed their families and make money. Dickens, Shakespeare, Asimov, Austen, Verne, Wells, etc were all writing to put food on the table. Doesn't make their work any less awesome or interesting and hasn't hurt the longevity of their ideas and prose. There is no either/or in this biz. Personally, I believe that the larger the audience reached in our time, the better a book stands of being a classic. But only time can tell that, nothing else. Just as there is no way in the end to predict the next big megaselling book, there is no way to know what will be read in 100 years.

As for SFWA, they are trying. They are hampered by their own slowness, but hopefully soon they'll have better guidelines and can move forward into the new age of publishing.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

No Cat said:


> Also, many of the classics we still read were written by people just trying to feed their families and make money. Dickens, Shakespeare, Asimov, Austen, Verne, Wells, etc were all writing to put food on the table.


Actually, not Asimov, who was an Associate Professor of Biochemistry for most of his young to middle age adult life, and finally quit to be able to devote more time to what he truly most loved, writing. But your general point still holds.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

PaulLev said:


> Actually, not Asimov, who was an Associate Professor of Biochemistry for most of his young to middle age adult life, and finally quit to be able to devote more time to what he truly most loved, writing. But your general point still holds.


True, but he wrote a ton and he did go full time writer eventually. And... he got paid for his writing. I doubt we'd have heard of him much less consider him one of the greats of SF if he'd spent 20 years writing a single book. 

It's true though that SFWA has a huge job ahead of it to become relevant to indie writers. They are trying, however, which is something, I guess. I was going to leave the organization, but decided to stay because I see the work going on to update it to the 21st century in terms of a lot of things (publishing, attitude toward women and minority authors etc) and I'm willing to hang on and see where the ship sails.


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## No longer seen (Aug 17, 2013)

Let's keep context in mind, which KKR didn't when she wrote that paragraph about the 50,000 downloads.
KKR has been a professional writer for nearly 30 years. I wonder what she would consider a success. The rise and fall of Pulphouse? Editing F&SF? (And I do NOT know why she left.)
I suspect the real reason is that she kept writing and learning. She hung in there. And kept making money through producing and selling novels and short stories. She wrote stuff readers wanted to read.
How will she -- and all of us indie writers -- survive longterm? 
The same way.
And, we have the advantage of not having to deal with editors and agents -- just readers.
(Those pesky rascals.)
We still need to produce stuff readers want to read  -- and make them know it exists (marketing).
Anything more specific may -- or may not -- help in the long term.
No Cat has explained how 50,000 99 cent downloads dramatically raised her income. She had more content to sell the readers. Annie Jocoby has written about her income through giving away books. 
Selling 50,000 copies of a book for $9.99 could be a failure for a longterm writer, depending on context. 
Margaret Michell, Harper Lee, J D Salinger and yes -- Bel Kaufman -- are all failures as longterm writers, because they stopped after their short term success. But were hardly failures as writers in general. I suspect E.L. James will never produce another book, but I doubt she cares. She's made her tens of millions. And she may surprise me.
For those of us who have not (yet) earned enough money that we can live on the dividends and interest from our investments, we need to earn at least enough money to live on. And it's also nice to earn more, so we can make those investments (which I advocate every successful writer do, though I'm sure  many don't).
So, we need to write something readers want to read -- and make sure they know it exists.
Simple -- but not easy.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

No Cat said:


> True, but he wrote a ton and he did go full time writer eventually. And... he got paid for his writing.


Absolutely - payment was crucial to Isaac Asimov. I got him to write a forward to my collection of essays about Karl Popper (Austrian-British philosopher) by talking my publisher into offering Asimov $100.


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## Sandra K. Williams (Jun 15, 2013)

Dactyl said:


> I want to write a classic that will last and become part of our culture, not a "money maker."


But that's not really something the author controls. There's pixie dust in the air or something that allows a writer to tap into the zeitgeist and boom! Cultural icon.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Sandra K. Williams said:


> But that's not really something the author controls. There's pixie dust in the air or something that allows a writer to tap into the zeitgeist and boom! Cultural icon.


I also bet that none of the authors who wrote these books set out to do so. Seems to me the more you want to do this, the less likely you are to succeed  You might as well make money while you're at it. Also, all those classics have made a heck of a lot of money. It didn't always go to the author, though...


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## Luis dA (Jun 1, 2014)

Confirming No Cat, Richard writes, “So, we need to write something readers want to read -- and make sure they know it exists.” And adds, “Simple -- but not easy.”

Write something that people want. If followed, this simple advice will account for most of an author’s success. Make sure they know it exists, will account for almost all of the rest of the author’s success. 

It’s that simple and easy—if you follow the advice.

One more time (in the context of this thread): give people what they like and want, and how they like and want it.


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## No longer seen (Aug 17, 2013)

Patty Jansen said:


> I also bet that none of the authors who wrote these books set out to do so. Seems to me the more you want to do this, the less likely you are to succeed  You might as well make money while you're at it. Also, all those classics have made a heck of a lot of money. It didn't always go to the author, though...


It's easy to forget now, but the pioneering masters of science fiction wrote for magazines (primarily ASTOUNDING) that were in print all of one month, then disappeared. In the 1930 and 1940s there was NO hardcover science fiction novels published by regular publishers unless you were H.G. Wells. I don't believe Dell or any other fledgling paperback publishers had an SF line until the early 50s when both Ace and Ballantine started up. There were a few small presses run (probably at a loss) by fans. Doubleday started publishing hardcover SF also in the early 50s or so.

In the early days, Asimov, Heinlein, and all them cats had no idea that one day their stories would ever earn them anything except the cent or two John W Campbell paid them. Or even that anybody would ever read their stories beyond the month that issue of the magazine was available on newstands. (Bookstores wouldn't have carried ASTOUNDING, because it was one of those "pulp" magazines the literary elite turned their noses up at.)

Fantasy was in even worse shape. WEIRD TALES carried fantasy that could be called "horror." UNKNOWN WORLDS carried stories closer to what we call fantasy today, but World War 2 paper shortages killed it.

Robert E Howard died not knowing his greatest popularity and a Conan movie was decades in the future. H.P. Lovecraft too - it took August Derleth to found a small press just to put Lovecraft into hardcover, and even so he wasn't really discovered by most until the 60s.


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## Douglas Milewski (Jul 4, 2014)

For me, I know what success looks like. To quit my day job, I would need to pull in over $150k year to replace the current job (I live in an expensive area), the health insurance that comes with it, and other benefits. On top of that, I would need money to cover the higher risk, the production costs, etc, so short of pulling in $200k, my day job stays.

Am I going to make that on .99c novels? Not unless I move 600,000 copies, which I simply don't see happening. It may, of course, but I'd have to prove that I can make that  money over multiple novels before I believe that my success isn't just a flash in the pan.

That doesn't mean that the money isn't good, but if I'm going pro, that's not good enough. I'm the sole income producer in the house. Success for me must be a significantly better move than keeping my present gig.

So when Kris says that you don't make it on .99c novels, my math agrees for my area, my mortgage, and my situation.


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## RBK (Nov 28, 2014)

Douglas Milewski said:


> For me, I know what success looks like. To quit my day job, I would need to pull in over $150k year to replace the current job (I live in an expensive area), the health insurance that comes with it, and other benefits. On top of that, I would need money to cover the higher risk, the production costs, etc, so short of pulling in $200k, my day job stays.
> 
> Am I going to make that on .99c novels? Not unless I move 600,000 copies, which I simply don't see happening. It may, of course, but I'd have to prove that I can make that money over multiple novels before I believe that my success isn't just a flash in the pan.
> 
> ...


Nobody says you can make it on 99c novels. I'm pretty sure everyone on every 'side' agrees on that.

The debate is this: is it better to make less money on the first book in a series and potentially gain loads of readers/income on the later books, or to price high with a first book? Bearing in mind that, while on paper, that first book 'makes more money', in all likelihood it'll make you as a writer/publisher less because fewer people will buy it... and thus, fewer people will invest in the later series instalments... and fewer people will join your mailing list... meaning fewer readers will hop over to a cool new series you start in the following year. So less overall readers, less overall income.

And that's long-term income.

In other words: sure, you might make $100 selling 50 copies of series book one priced at, say, $4.99. And if you write a good story and you're lucky, you might sell 20 copies of series book 2, and then 10 of series book three, bringing your total income to $160.

But much, _much_ more likely than selling 50 books at a higher price is making $50 selling 150 copies of series book one at $0.99. And if you're lucky, 100 of those readers might buy book two, and then 50 of those might buy book three... bringing your total income to $300. Even though you've only made half the amount on book one.

Really simple example not taking into account a lot of possible variables, and with a generous follow-on purchase rate for both price points, but I hope it gets my point across.

Nobody makes a living solely on 99c novels anymore (with maybe one or two massive exceptions). But plenty make a killing on series that start with a permanent loss leader.

But hey, to each their own. Freedom is a wonderful thing.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

The point isn't to sell novels only at .99. It's to sell at least 1 novel at .99 (or free, I've seen huge careers and money be made off perma-free, including authors who perma-freed multiple books in a long series) and make the actual money on the deeper end of the funnel where the books are priced to get 70% royalties.  Instead of looking at each book individually, think about it as a whole.

Take a 4 book series with a pricing ladder:
50,000 .99 books brings in 17,500
70% sell-through to book 2 @ 2.99 is 35,000 sales and 70,000 monies
80% sell-through to book 3 @ 3.99 is 28,000 sales and 72,000 monies
90% sell-through to book 4 @ 4.99 is 25,000 sales and 85,000 monies
Total earned: 244,500 across 4 books.  

Let's take same four book series with no loss leader. Going by real % sales collected from both personal experience and anecdotal data from others, I've seen that people roughly get about 1/5th of the sales from a 4.99 as a .99 first book (mine spent years at higher prices than 4.99 even, so I'm being a bit generous honestly on the % there). We'll assume the same sell-through rates from book to book (which is also based on my own direct experience. Numbers are slightly rounded off (as they were above as well).

So instead of 50,000 copies at .99, the book 1 at 4.99 sells 10,000 copies at 4.99:
Book 1 @ 4.99 sells 10,000 copies and 34,000 monies
Book 2 @ 5.99 with 70% sell-through sells 7,000 copies and 28,000 monies
Book 3 @ 6.99 with 80% sell-through sells 5,600 copies and 26,000 monies
Book 4 @ 7.99 with 90% sell-through sells 5,000 copies and 27,000 monies
Series total would be 115,000 monies.

Or, you know, less than half. With 1/5 the readership at the end, too.

There is a reason loss-leaders are a tried and true marketing strategy.


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

Richard Stooker said:


> So, we need to write something readers want to read -- and make sure they know it exists.
> Simple -- but not easy.


Truly, this is the bottom line. Pretty much works as my entire game plan.


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## Dactyl (Dec 27, 2014)

Sandra K. Williams said:


> But that's not really something the author controls. There's pixie dust in the air or something that allows a writer to tap into the zeitgeist and boom! Cultural icon.


I am sure you are right. What amuses me is that others here have suggested (or said outright) that the harder one tries, the less likely one is to succeed. Personally, I think it is luck, but luck seems to follow those who try and try and try, giving up only when there is no breath left.

A quote comes to mind. A friend of mine who does make his living independently writing about extremely high-tech stuff, once put this in one of his books, "If someone tells you that you are one in a million, there are 7,000 more just like you." That put things into perspective for me.


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## Dactyl (Dec 27, 2014)

Richard Stooker said:


> And, we have the advantage of not having to deal with editors and agents -- just readers.


I have the feeling that there are plenty of writers who ran the gamut many times with the traditional publishers, faced rejection dozens to hundreds of times and felt delight and a hint of revenge when eBooks came into being. They joined the multitudes of other rejected writers and found that the readers could be just as merciless as the editors and agents. Rejection in the traditional publishing world is private, although admittedly painful. Rejection in the public sphere can be crushing. And it probably is.


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## PaulLev (Nov 2, 2012)

Richard Stooker said:


> It's easy to forget now, but the pioneering masters of science fiction wrote for magazines (primarily ASTOUNDING) that were in print all of one month, then disappeared. In the 1930 and 1940s there was NO hardcover science fiction novels published by regular publishers unless you were H.G. Wells. I don't believe Dell or any other fledgling paperback publishers had an SF line until the early 50s when both Ace and Ballantine started up. There were a few small presses run (probably at a loss) by fans. Doubleday started publishing hardcover SF also in the early 50s or so.
> 
> In the early days, Asimov, Heinlein, and all them cats had no idea that one day their stories would ever earn them anything except the cent or two John W Campbell paid them. Or even that anybody would ever read their stories beyond the month that issue of the magazine was available on newstands. (Bookstores wouldn't have carried ASTOUNDING, because it was one of those "pulp" magazines the literary elite turned their noses up at.)
> 
> ...


On the other hand, Heinlein famously began selling short stories to the Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s - which broke him out of the low-paying pulps, and paid him $2000-$2500 a story, enough to live on for months or even a year in those days. By the 1990s, Playboy was the top-paying market for short science fiction, and paid $5000 per story. Nice money, even today, but no one except a hermit could live on that for a year these days.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

No Cat said:


> I learned by reading that blog that the 50,000+ copies I've sold at .99 means I'm failing. Whew. I was so confused by these huge checks I've been getting that I thought I was succeeding. I'm glad KKR could set me straight


I want to fail like you.


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## katrina46 (May 23, 2014)

Edward M. Grant said:


> Yeah, I've read that kind of thing often on their blogs. But that's not saying that writers shouldn't promote a free book, that's saying writers shouldn't spend time promoting books in general.


I never understood this philosophy. Sure a new book will help sell your others IF the reader knows it's there. Otherwise you could write a hundred books and never sell your new or old. I learned that this month. My sales had flat lined, so I did a free promo for the one I had in select. I've gotten borrows from KU every day since and have sold some copies of my back list, too. I also got sign ups on my mailing list and some good reviews. None of which was happening before the promo. That freebooksy ad was definitely not a waste of time.


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## anotherpage (Apr 4, 2012)

No Cat said:


> Actually, in some ways, I can answer this. Because, perhaps pretty stupidly, I spent years following their advice. I started self-publishing in 2010 (a few months before Kris and Dean did). At first, I just tested the waters (same a many people do, K&D included, I put up a few things and just sat back and watched to see what would happen). By early 2011, I felt there was something to this self-pub thing and got brave enough to publish a novel. By this point, KKR&DWS were self-publishing as well and dispensing advice on how to do it to us, their students. I listened to them because hey, they were my mentors and my friends. I did what they said to do. When they said raise prices and treat yourself like a professional, I raised prices. I made up a publishing company when they said to do that. I learned how to do my own covers because they said to do that. In late 2011 I put up a book under a pen name and I was reading the Kboards, which KKR&DWS were already dismissive of at that point, and people were doing this thing with Amazon where they were price-matching books to free and seeing a big sales bounce off the back when they came to paid. Ignoring what my mentors said, I did this. My pen name book gave away 20k copies in a few days and when it bounced back to paid (at 5.99, mind you), I was selling 50-100 a day for a while. Ah, the good old days of 2011.
> 
> The next part is mostly my fault. I freaked out, didn't think I could manage to write another good book in that genre and that it had been a fluke, and I wrote a novella in another genre instead. To this day I've never followed up that book. In 2012 I started putting out lots of short stories and novellas, pricing and packaging them the way I was being taught to do so by KKR&DWS (lots of collections, they said to do an "a" and a "b" side collection with each set of short stories to get more products onto your product page, writing whatever I felt like because they said write first and worry about what market it might have afterward, pricing everything at 2.99 for shorts and 5.99-7.99 for novels because they said to value my work and got mad at anyone who did that "KDP Select BS" or was in the ".99 ghetto" etc). I took flak from them for hiring my covers done sometimes, Dean told me at one point I was just wasting money by getting custom, nice cover art, but I have a pretty good artistic eye and that was a sticking point for me since I wanted my covers to look like trad covers, and felt Dean's were miles away from there.
> 
> ...


Interesting show us some of your work so we can see how you have it structured lol


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## Jim Johnson (Jan 4, 2011)

New post from DWS with more info on his and Kris's work. Fun to read this and compare comments from No Cat and others about it all. Truth is somewhere in the middle, probably. More information = better decisions for us, perhaps.

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/the-new-world-of-publishing-spreading-out/


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## storyteller (Feb 3, 2014)

Keeping things short and impersonal.  If a writer has 500 books out in multiple formats, and each book averages 15 sales a month across all formats, that writer would get to a big number of total sales each year, but it's a LOT of books to write to get to that number, especially if they are anything other than short fiction.

And as for taking profit, anything over 2$/sale to the writer gets you over the six-figure earnings hump.  But actual profit would require a bigger number  than 2$ before expenses to distribute in multiple formats.

I mean, it's an approach, certainly.  But getting to a 400/500/600+ book backlist, all the while only pulling in a sale every other day I would personally find too demoralizing to finish as a project.  I have very limited time to give to writing at all, so for me, that approach isn't on the table.  I have to work on fiction (and non-fiction) I find very compelling and also believe can sell more like a couple copies per day on the low end with decent marketing and presentation efforts.  But we all have different ways to keep the energy levels up.


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