# Regions of discoverability



## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

I started to write this post on the thread about permafree and pricing, and then realized that it outran the scope of the original discussion by a long margin.

The thing about permafree is that it's more successful under the following circumstances:

1) The bigger your audience is now, the better permafree works. (Because you have individuals pointing to the permafree to lure friends in.)
2) The broader the appeal of your books, the better permafree works. (Because people are more likely to read and buy your books.)
3) The more books you have, the more money you make off of permafree. (Obviously.)

I'm not sure that permafree could take you from a nobody to a somebody. In order to get people to download and read your permafree, they have to have a reason to want to do it, and the best permafree readers are the ones who have heard about you and who are curious. So permafree may not be a good strategy for people who are barely being discovered at all. I *do* think that it's an excellent strategy that can take the right person from a regular-joe-Somebody to a Somebody whose new releases regularly tap the top 100.

And this is one of the things that I think needs to be talked about in terms of discoverability. It's much, much harder work to go from being five-sales-a-month-Joe to one-hundred-sales-a-month-Joe than it is to go from being one-hundred-sales-a-month Joe to two-thousand-sales-a-month Joe.

Discoverability has phases. Acting like "discoverability" means one thing to all people is wrong.

Phase 1: Nobody knows who you are, and you work for every sale. You market your butt off and wonder why your books barely ever move. You spend a lot of time watching your books bop around from 90,000 to 35,000 (ooh! a sale!) before sliding back up to 140,000.

Phase 2: Not a lot of people know who you are, but you have a handful of readers who really dig your stuff. Now the algorithms are doing work for you. If you didn't do a single blog, or a single ad, or any of that stuff, you might sell a couple hundred to a couple thousand copies of your books in a month. Not bad for doing nothing.

Phase 3: Lots of people know who you are. When you release a book, you send out a few notifications, and next thing you know, your book is riding near the top of your genre lists. You don't have to do any work to get reviews, or to keep your books in the bestseller lists for your genre for months on end. Your fans do most of that for you. You have great word of mouth and you don't have to do anything for it. You may have a handful of breakout books that get into the top 100 on the basis of algorithms, but when you release a book, it won't get that high.

Phase 4: The vendors know who you are. You email your person at the vendors before your release, and they make sure that there's merchandising in place for your title. You hit the top 100 every time you release a title, and your backlist sales are stronger than most people's frontlist sales.

I think the word "discoverability" is misleading because it suggests we're all headed for the same thing. Yeah, we all want more readers to discover us--whether we're in Phase 1 or Phase 4. But the tools we use to achieve that discoverability are going to vary substantially. If you're in Phase 3, my advice is "don't waste time on a lot of promo, and get the next book out." I'm not sure that's the best advice for people in Phase 1.

So I think that one of the reasons that this discussion can go off the rails is that people are comparing strategies across phases.

So I don't think permafree would work to get someone out of Phase 1 at this point--if you're in Phase 1, nobody knows about you, and there are thousands of free books by people that nobody knows about, so you're still just another tiny fish in a tiny pond.

I do think that it can help someone move from Phase 2 and beyond, though, and I think I'd be hard pressed to point to an author in Phase 3 who wouldn't benefit enormously from a permafree.


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## AmberDa1 (Jul 23, 2012)

This is a great post & something to think about. Thanks, Courtney, for sharing.


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## SLGray (Dec 21, 2013)

As someone firmly in Phase 1 at the moment, I agree. I have plans to use permafree in the future (assuming it's still worth anything by the time I've got the books to make it worthwhile), but right now? There'd be absolutely no point in "selling" my book for nothing. With all the talk of permafree being the golden ticket, though, I can see how it would be tempting for a nobody to think, well, why wait? I'll just do it now and get ahead of the game.

Good thoughts, Courtney.


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

Excellent post, Courtney. I have two permafree titles in different genres and under different pen names, which has given me the opportunity to see the phases you're talking about in action. One pen name is at Phase 2.5 and permafree has been awesome for that name/series. The other pen name is for a niche subgenre, with infrequent releases. The permafree leading into that series hasn't produced much result at all, which seems to fit what you say about Phase 1.


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## rjspears (Sep 25, 2011)

I'm in the "nobody" stage of my writing career right now and I KNOW that discoverability is the biggest issue I'm wrestling with.  This post is definitely of interest to me.  Thanks for the analysis and insight.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Great post! I was an adjuster in a previous life, though, and I can't help myself:

Phase 0: Nobody knows who you are, and you work for every sale. You market your butt off and wonder why your books barely ever move. You spend a lot of time watching your books bop around from 400,000 to 200,000 (ooh! a sale!) before sliding back up to 1,000,000. You grow your mailing list.

Phase 1: Not a lot of people know who you are, but you have a handful of readers who really dig your stuff. You start to get enough reviews that some of the promo sites will accept you. When you do a promo, you sell a few hundred books or give away a few thousand freebies.

Phase 2: Now the algorithms are doing work for you. If you didn't do a single blog, or a single ad, or any of that stuff, you might sell a couple hundred to a couple thousand copies of your books in a month. Not bad for doing nothing.

Phase 3: Lots of people know who you are. When you release a book, you send out a few notifications, and next thing you know, your book is riding near the top of your genre lists. You don't have to do any work to get reviews, or to keep your books in the bestseller lists for your genre for months on end. Your fans do most of that for you. You have great word of mouth and you don't have to do anything for it. You may have a handful of breakout books that get into the top 100 on the basis of algorithms, but when you release a book, it won't get that high.

Phase 4: The vendors know who you are. You email your person at the vendors before your release, and they make sure that there's merchandising in place for your title. You hit the top 100 every time you release a title, and your backlist sales are stronger than most people's frontlist sales.

--------------------------

Also, this is close to my experience, too, and I thank Valerie for posting it down thread.



valeriec80 said:


> I'd say that if you're somewhere in the 1-2 phase, making a book free will do nothing unless you couple it with a promo of some kind, and this has been true since... oh gosh, maybe 2012?
> 
> I've been at this for a while, and I've yet to get into the 3rd phase, although I've had some lucky flukes due to forces outside my control. (Although... I don't know. I guess I'm a hybrid 1/2 phaser. My ranks are crap, but if you've got 20 books bouncing around between #50,000-#100,000 and 10 others bouncing around from #500,000-#100,000, you can still sell a few hundred books every month.)
> 
> ...


Later on in the thread, a more successful author put it this way:



ゴジラ said:


> ...I think that the specific behaviors outlined in these regions of discoverability primarily apply to romance. Few other genres will have one book jumping into the top 100 and the next failing to break that barrier, although you might hit top 100 on different books with ad support (which is the only way I've ever bounced up there). In most genres, peak rankings are a pretty predictable (difficult) climb from book to book as you scrape together readers.
> 
> *Also, in what I expect would have been phase 2 for me, there weren't stable sales of hundreds to thousands a month without ads. It was like "run an ad = peak" (hundreds or thousands of sales that month), and "time between ads = troughs" (weep-worthy sales that month). I didn't drag myself into vaguely stable sales until what looked more like phase 3.*
> 
> ...


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## momilp (Jan 11, 2010)

I have been stuck in phase 1 for so long, my career as an author resembles the plot of the movie Groundhog Day. Every day I do something different, and the next morning I wake up to the same results. I love writing and I won't stop trying to find a way toward phase 2, but there are moments where I wonder if I'll ever reach it. I don't have a permafree yet, because I agree with Courtney's theory. As a permanent resident of phase 1, my permafree would be invisible. But maybe, despite all, I should give it a try, and see if anything happens. So, considering that I have very low expectations, I ask all of you, is there any reason I shouldn't?


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## ToniD (May 3, 2011)

A wise post, Courtney. Thanks.


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## Matt Ryan (Nov 16, 2012)

Interesting post. I always enjoy the inner thoughts of people that have "made" it.

I'm at phase -0.

It sounds like a snowball effect: You start out with a single snow flake, which is incredibly hard to get other snow to stick to, but if you work hard enough, you'll get a marble sized snowball. A marble is hard to deal with but you build on it. You roll it around until you have a large snowball the height of a person. Finally, that snowball moves on its on, chasing you, it's hungry for books and growing.


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

momilp said:


> As a permanent resident of phase 1, my permafree would be invisible. But maybe, despite all, I should give it a try, and see if anything happens. So, considering that I have very low expectations, I ask all of you, is there any reason I shouldn't?


Honestly, since you appear to have 4 series books, I'd considering going free with book 1. But I'd only do it if I was ready to give free a fair shot by taking out advertising on the freebie. It'd be costly but might give you an initial push toward the top 1,000 free. Because a permafree nobody knows about, wouldn't do you much good. Just my opinion and I'm by no means an expert. (So don't kill me if you do it and lose money on the deal.)  But before getting started, I'd make sure your covers, blurbs, and categories are exactly what you need them to be and that the back matter of each book points to the next book and to your mailing list. My only reservation is whether your genre/subgenre is popular enough to maximize results.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

Completely agree in all respects.

There. That's my one KB post a year where I don't start a ruckus.

See y'all next year!


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

blakebooks said:


> Completely agree in all respects.
> 
> There. That's my one KB post a year where I don't start a ruckus.
> 
> See y'all next year!


Notable for being only four sentences long too! Bet you couldn't avoid a ruckus with _five _sentences. Dare you!


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## Lisa Scott (Apr 4, 2011)

Really great post, Courtney. Hadn't thought about it like that.  Thanks for sharing.


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

Excellent post - thank you for sharing.


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## valeriechase (Nov 22, 2013)

Thank you so much for this post! I'm firmly in the Phase 1 camp, with only one book under my wing that released two weeks ago. I have a lot of climbing to do!


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## momilp (Jan 11, 2010)

Dara England said:


> Honestly, since you appear to have 4 series books, I'd considering going free with book 1. But I'd only do it if I was ready to give free a fair shot by taking out advertising on the freebie. It'd be costly but might give you an initial push toward the top 1,000 free. Because a permafree nobody knows about, wouldn't do you much good. Just my opinion and I'm by no means an expert. (So don't kill me if you do it and lose money on the deal.)  But before getting started, I'd make sure your covers, blurbs, and categories are exactly what you need them to be and that the back matter of each book points to the next book and to your mailing list. My only reservation is whether your genre/subgenre is popular enough to maximize results.


The back matter of each book points to the next and to my mailing list. Regarding covers and blurbs, I think they are what I need them to be, but I could be wrong. The genre of the four books series is dystopian. I would invest money to advertise the permafree, but besides Bookbub, which doesn't want me, what else? I have already tried all the other venues out there for my previous free days and 99 cents promotions. The results were okay. Would it make any difference with a permafree? I am open to any suggestion. I want to make it work.


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## Courtney Milan (Feb 27, 2011)

I think a good rule of thumb is that if you aren't getting any real movement from temporary free days, I'm not sure that permafree will help. I'm sure someone will disagree for some reason, but for me, I have a permafree book because I made a book temporarily free and saw such a huge uptick in sales that I thought, hmm, I'll leave it there another week.

Repeat times 9 months, and here I am!


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

I'm in Phase 2 (autodiagnosis):



> Phase 2: Not a lot of people know who you are, but you have a handful of readers who really dig your stuff. Now the algorithms are doing work for you. If you didn't do a single blog, or a single ad, or any of that stuff, you might sell a couple hundred to a couple thousand copies of your books in a month. Not bad for doing nothing.


I think by now most of my sales come from a handful of people recommending my stuff to their friends. I hope my permafree makes it easier for those who still have doubts. Frankly, I also hope it chases away people who think my books are terrible/immoral/unreadable etc.
I never ask for reviews or suggest people should write them. 
I raised my prices last year and my sales kept up and even grew slightly.
I do have a New Releases List which is slowly growing. Even as small as it is now, I felt it's effects when I released my last book.

Since I'm writing in a rather small niche, I think I'll just keep writing and wait patiently until my readership grows big enough to hit Phase 3.

Thanks Courtney. This post gives a good insight in the structure of discoverability.


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## momilp (Jan 11, 2010)

Courtney Milan said:


> I think a good rule of thumb is that if you aren't getting any real movement from temporary free days, I'm not sure that permafree will help. I'm sure someone will disagree for some reason, but for me, I have a permafree book because I made a book temporarily free and saw such a huge uptick in sales that I thought, hmm, I'll leave it there another week.
> 
> Repeat times 9 months, and here I am!


Given my previous results, that is what I fear. But, again, what else can I do?


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## B Sheridan (Dec 5, 2011)

Thanks for sharing this, very interesting analysis and important delineations.

I wonder though if the presence of circumstance 2) broader appeal, especially if there's a few in the series already available, might make perma-free a good choice even if you're in phase 1. Instead of working your butt off for every sale, you do it for every download. You advertise and market and hope that removal of a barrier (cost) will start to create buzz, jumpstarting the move to phase 2.

Just throwing that out there. There are far more experienced than I on this board though, and maybe I'm unusual, but I'd consider giving away a whole series if I thought it would take me from no audience to some audience.

You know, there was a self-published...paranormal romance (I think?) author who had all her books perma-free at one point. Maybe they still are? This was a while ago. I'm gonna go look through my kindle library and see if I can come up with her name. Maybe she's blogged about the experience, wouldn't that be interesting?


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## MissyM (Jun 21, 2013)

As someone in Phase 1 who was debating moving to Permafree after making my way through the KKR thread today, this post is *incredibly* helpful. I've come to realize I need to consider the current position of the writer who's sharing her/his experience when reading about their tactics. This post confirms what I've been suspecting: the success of many tactics depends on where you're currently at in your career.

Thanks for outlining it so clearly!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Really fantastic advice, Courtney! Thank you for sharing it.  I'm hoping to kick my way into Phase 3 soon...we'll see how it goes.


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## Holly Bush (Feb 11, 2012)

momilp said:


> Given my previous results, that is what I fear. But, again, what else can I do?


I've had very good luck with EReader News Today for $1.99 and 99 cent promos.


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## Samuel Peralta (Dec 31, 2013)

Well thought out, Courtney, great post.

I think audience size of genre will also be a factor in how effective permafree is.


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## Rachel Aukes (Oct 13, 2013)

As usual, you really nailed it. Thanks, Courtney!


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## G. M. Washburn (Jan 23, 2014)

Can anybody please explain what "Permafree" means? From the context I gathered does it mean permanently free? (Sorry, google let me down on this one)


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

I'd say that if you're somewhere in the 1-2 phase, making a book free will do nothing unless you couple it with a promo of some kind, and this has been true since... oh gosh, maybe 2012? 

I've been at this for a while, and I've yet to get into the 3rd phase, although I've had some lucky flukes due to forces outside my control. (Although... I don't know. I guess I'm a hybrid 1/2 phaser. My ranks are crap, but if you've got 20 books bouncing around between #50,000-#100,000 and 10 others bouncing around from #500,000-#100,000, you can still sell a few hundred books every month.)

I really think the name of the game for those of us trying to move up the ranks these days is reviews. Reviews, reviews, reviews. You can't get good promo spots without them. If I was releasing a book from nowhere these days, I'd start trying to get reviews right away. I don't know that throwing the the first book in a series permafree is going to do much without a promo to kickstart it, honestly. Now, if you're seriously selling nothing at all, it might get the other books in a series up to a few extra sales a month, but... 

I have three permafrees. Of them, the second book in one series sells ~30 books a month. The other two are barely able to get ~6 sales a month on the second book in the series. When I take them off permafree, sales drop to nil, so I keep them there, but as a strategy, it ain't doing much. The annoying thing is that with two of the permafrees, I don't have the reviews to warrant a promo, so I'm stuck. I'm currently mobilizing my reader base to review stuff for me by giving them free books. Near as I can tell, the name of the game these days is promotion. I fought it last year--stubbornly believing that writing more books was going to magically work. I put out release after release, hoping each one would take off, but without eyeballs, they (mostly) didn't. (Exceptions: see lucky flukes out of my control mentioned above.) From where I'm standing, having lots of books does a fat lot of nothing for you if they've got no visibility.


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## dianasg (Jan 8, 2010)

*bows down to Courtney* Seriously, great thread. I think this is something a lot of us realize on some level, but often gets lost in the heat of the discoverability conversations - and is part of the disconnect in the advice given from people in different phases. 

Valerie - Just out of curiosity, have you tried a NetGalley thing or blog tours to garner reviews? I've heard mixed things about their usefulness. 

Also, I wanted to say thank you for your candor. I know you've been having a bum time of it lately sales-wise, but I appreciate you sharing what has and hasn't worked for you.


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## momilp (Jan 11, 2010)

G. M. Washburn said:


> Can anybody please explain what "Permafree" means? From the context I gathered does it mean permanently free? (Sorry, google let me down on this one)


Yes, a permafree is a title that is maintained free for as long as the author wants. The book is priced $0.00 on Smashwords, and after a while the other retailers match the price. Normally, to have the price matched on Amazon several feedbacks regarding the title being free somewhere else are needed.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

DianaGabriel said:


> Valerie - Just out of curiosity, have you tried a NetGalley thing or blog tours to garner reviews? I've heard mixed things about their usefulness.


NetGalley, no. I kind of thought that you had to be part of a co-op or have a publisher to get into that. I should find out more info on that.

Blog tours, a wee bit. I got maybe four or five reviews on one book I did a blog tour on, but I was kind of annoyed at how many people signed up and then never posted. Thus far, I've had the best response from reaching out directly to my email list, but I'm trying Librarything currently, and I might hit up Story Cartel after that, and then there's some service that contacts Amazon reviewers for you, but I'm starting at the cheapest and working up, lol. 



DianaGabriel said:


> I know you've been having a bum time of it lately sales-wise.


Not to highjack the thread with my own BS, but I guess I'll point out (as succinctly as I can) that I have pure-O OCD, which is a kind of OCD in which I become fixated on certain thoughts. It's really insidious because the thoughts present themselves as very rational, and I'll very much think that they're "real" concerns that I should be worrying about. Anyway, my sales are not that bad. It's only that somehow I got myself ruminating on this idea that if I wasn't making five figures a month, I was a failure. And so I spent like six months of my life trying to figure out what I was doing *wrong,* since I was such crap. Sounds silly to type it, but I swear to God I *believed* that until going through all my big, public breakdowns, which made me realize how I was feeling wasn't *normal.* Anyway, I have been realizing lately how freaking lucky and how not-a-failure I am. So... sorry. I, um, often get more worried about things than is warranted, but I'm working on it, and I'm in a better place right now. /end highjack


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> NetGalley, no. I kind of thought that you had to be part of a co-op or have a publisher to get into that. I should find out more info on that.
> 
> Blog tours, a wee bit. I got maybe four or five reviews on one book I did a blog tour on, but I was kind of annoyed at how many people signed up and then never posted. Thus far, I've had the best response from reaching out directly to my email list, but I'm trying Librarything currently, and I might hit up Story Cartel after that, and then there's some service that contacts Amazon reviewers for you, but I'm starting at the cheapest and working up, lol.
> 
> ...


You are totally cool. Everybody feels the way you express. You are the one who is brave enough to put my it out there. But, trust, I'm right there with you. Sometimes I think you are the coolest person on the board.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

anniejocoby said:


> You are totally cool. Everybody feels the way you express. You are the one who is brave enough to put my it out there. But, trust, I'm right there with you. Sometimes I think you are the coolest person on the board.


Wow. You just made my whole week!! 

(And now I really am highjacking the thread. Aaaah!!)


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## Nick Endi Webb (Mar 25, 2012)

anniejocoby said:


> Sometimes I think you are the coolest person on the board.


It's true. I read pretty much all your comments.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

valeriec80 said:


> Wow. You just made my whole week!!
> 
> (And now I really am highjacking the thread. Aaaah!!)


I speaks the truth!


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## dianasg (Jan 8, 2010)

valeriec80 said:


> NetGalley, no. I kind of thought that you had to be part of a co-op or have a publisher to get into that. I should find out more info on that.
> 
> Blog tours, a wee bit. I got maybe four or five reviews on one book I did a blog tour on, but I was kind of annoyed at how many people signed up and then never posted. Thus far, I've had the best response from reaching out directly to my email list, but I'm trying Librarything currently, and I might hit up Story Cartel after that, and then there's some service that contacts Amazon reviewers for you, but I'm starting at the cheapest and working up, lol.
> 
> Not to highjack the thread with my own BS, but I guess I'll point out (as succinctly as I can) that I have pure-O OCD, which is a kind of OCD in which I become fixated on certain thoughts. It's really insidious because the thoughts present themselves as very rational, and I'll very much think that they're "real" concerns that I should be worrying about. Anyway, my sales are not that bad. It's only that somehow I got myself ruminating on this idea that if I wasn't making five figures a month, I was a failure. And so I spent like six months of my life trying to figure out what I was doing *wrong,* since I was such crap. Sounds silly to type it, but I swear to God I *believed* that until going through all my big, public breakdowns, which made me realize how I was feeling wasn't *normal.* Anyway, I have been realizing lately how freaking lucky and how not-a-failure I am. So... sorry. I, um, often get more worried about things than is warranted, but I'm working on it, and I'm in a better place right now. /end highjack


It's not BS! I know what it's like to put extreme pressure on yourself - you're definitely not alone. I'm glad you're in a better place! Seconding what everyone else said that you're one of the awesome-est voices on this board. 

Also re: NetGalley -- pretty sure you have to be in a co-op or the cost is prohibitive. But thanks for the info re: blog tours!


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## KevinH (Jun 29, 2013)

Nice post. It reminds me of something Robby Benson once said about there being 5 stages to a successful acting career:

1) Who's Robby Benson?
2) Get me Robby Benson.
3) Get me a Robby Benson type.
4) Get me a younger Robby Benson.
5) Who's Robby Benson?


Hopefully we can all avoid the slide into obscurity presaged by #5.


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## Guest (Jan 26, 2014)

I think there is another dimension here, and that can be described as quality or greatness. I actually just wrote a blog post on this subject. If you aren't striving for greatness with every book--not just doing your best, but striving to improve your skills so that your best becomes better--then improving your discoverability is only going to do so much for you.

I know, I know, whenever somebody says "quality is important," we all respond with "of course it is, we already assume that." But if we _really_ believe that striving for greatness is the first and most important step, why do we spend so much time and energy angst over promotional tactics and discoverability? If cream always rises on the top, and a truly great book will rise on its own strength, then the most effective way to take your career to the next stage is to write truly great books. And yet, how much do we angst about that?

I think I need to spend a lot less time working on discoverability and a lot more time improving my writing.


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## EmilieHardie (Jan 2, 2014)

DianaGabriel said:


> Also re: NetGalley -- pretty sure you have to be in a co-op or the cost is prohibitive. But thanks for the info re: blog tours!


Individual authors can sign up but the cost is a minimum of $299 for a six moth listing and there doesn't seem to be anywhere near the kind of flexibility that I would want for that kind of money.


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## Guest (Jan 26, 2014)

G. M. Washburn said:


> Can anybody please explain what "Permafree" means? From the context I gathered does it mean permanently free? (Sorry, google let me down on this one)


Yep. Basically, when you set a book to be free indefinitely. The way to do this is to make it free on Kobo or Smashwords (and by extension all of the sites that Smashwords distributes to). The Amazon bots will eventually see that you're offering it for free elsewhere, and price match down to $0. At their leisure, of course.


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## brendajcarlton (Sep 29, 2012)

What a great post.  You laid out in much better detail a vague sense I've been getting that all the big sellers on the board's stories all boil down to "Somehow, I don't know how exactly, I got a small flame and this is how I built it up into a big bonfire."  That's all great information but it doesn't help you get the first little flame.  I understand that writing more books is laying more kindling, so the fire will be bigger if it eventually comes, but personally, I have to fight the part of me that says, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."


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## Moist_Tissue (Dec 6, 2013)

EmilieHardie said:


> Individual authors can sign up but the cost is a minimum of $299 for a six moth listing and there doesn't seem to be anywhere near the kind of flexibility that I would want for that kind of money.


There is another option. Some co-ops don't have perm members; instead, authors pay for a month or whatever then another author replaces them. This can be about $85 a month.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

I'm at Phase 2 and have three books out. My first one is a cheap gateway drug  but I've hesitated to make it free purely because it's my second-best selling title. Would setting it at free really make the other two take off?


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

valeriec80 said:


> I'd say that if you're somewhere in the 1-2 phase, making a book free will do nothing unless you couple it with a promo of some kind, and this has been true since... oh gosh, maybe 2012?


Exactly my thought.

I agree with the phases thing, and I have seen it in action with different series I released. There is no need to stay stuck in phase 1 though. If you want to use permafree to lead into other things you have for sale and fear it won't be seen, just promo it. That will kick start things. It worked for me, but in a sort of cockeyed way in that it actually got all the other vendors and AMZ stores going too.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

valeriec80 said:


> It's only that somehow I got myself ruminating on this idea that if I wasn't making five figures a month, I was a failure. And so I spent like six months of my life trying to figure out what I was doing *wrong,* since I was such crap. Sounds silly to type it, but I swear to God I *believed* that until going through all my big, public breakdowns, which made me realize how I was feeling wasn't *normal.*


It may not be a rational feeling, but I think it's a very common one around here.  So at least you weren't alone.



> Anyway, I have been realizing lately how freaking lucky and how not-a-failure I am.


Good!


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

I totally agree with you that striving to out-do your current best ability is ALWAYS extremely important, and should be the first concern while sitting down to write, but there is the period after you've finished writing that book and need to actually find its readers. As Russel Blake often points out, if you're approaching this as a business (not everybody is, but if you are) you have to play two different roles: writer and publisher. Publishers do need to concern themselves with finding customers to buy the product.

So, in the interest of devils-advocating your post...



Joe Vasicek said:


> But if we _really_ believe that striving for greatness is the first and most important step, why do we spend so much time and energy angst over promotional tactics and discoverability?


Not only because we have to play two roles, and when you're stepping out of the writer shoes and into the publisher shoes, promotion and discoverability are just the job descriptions, but also, what do you do when you've written a good book and nobody's finding it yet? Striving for greatness is all well and good, but eventually a writer reaches a level of quality where what he's writing will be appealing to readers. Yes, he can always go up from there, and should strive to do so. But that fact doesn't make what he's got to offer right now_ not-quality_.

Hell, the whole reason why I started self-publishing was because every historical fiction imprint rejected my first novel -- every imprint and every small press I could find that was worth submitting to at the time. But I still _knew _it was a good book and readers would love it. So to KDP I went, because I was not going to stop trying to find a way of getting this book into readers' hands until I'd succeeded. I could have just said, "Oh well...it's a good book, so eventually, somehow, it'll be read," and just wrote another book, wrote it better, and tried to sell that one. That was indeed the way things were done in the old school, and before easy and cheap self-publishing it would have been my only option. But thank goodness I just tried a little harder to connect to my audience, because the book sold well and still sells well.

If I'd just accepted that finding my audience wasn't coming at the snap of my fingers (not that taking months and months to query a book and getting a pile of rejections is _easy_) and taken that to be a sign that my writing hadn't achieved "greatness" yet, my first novel would still be unknown to readers and I would not be quitting my job in 18 weeks to do this full-time.



> If cream always rises on the top, and a truly great book will rise on its own strength, then the most effective way to take your career to the next stage is to write truly great books. And yet, how much do we angst about that?


Cream doesn't always rise to the top. Especially not when you're talking about books, where there are already tens of thousands of books competing for readers (and that's only counting the ones they see when browsing genre lists and Alsoboughts) and a hundred thousand more being published every year. "Cream always rises to the top" is the same kind of silky bon mot the people over at That Other Forum rub against their faces to soothe away their tears over how hard it is to get a book published. You have to put a little work in to make your cream rise (that somehow sounds faintly dirty to me), at least until you reach Phase 3 as outlined by Courtney. Then it becomes much easier for your cream to rise without much effort on your part.



> I think I need to spend a lot less time working on discoverability and a lot more time improving my writing.


Every writer always needs to spend a lot of time improving her writing, but if your books are already pretty good and aren't selling, and if you want to make money from them, then you need to step into the publisher role for a few hours and evaluate the ways you reach your audience.


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## hs (Feb 15, 2011)

Great post, Courtney! I hadn't thought of discoverability in terms of phases. As an author who's still stuck in Phase 1, I can see now why a lot of the suggestions I've read about haven't worked. Given this way of looking at things, I wonder if those who have reached later phases remember what worked for them in going from phase 1 to phase 2?


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## AmsterdamAssassin (Oct 21, 2011)

Informative post, makes me realize how far I have to go to get out of phase 1  

As to permafree, I publish both short stories (Katla KillFiles) and novels in the Amsterdam Assassin Series, and I see lots of downloads from my free stories. However, a download does not constitute a 'sale'. Many people probably download Locked Room and Microchip Murder because they are free, but they end up on a loooooooooooooong TBR list. And even if the short stories are read, that doesn't always translate into sales, because the audience who craves free books doesn't always want to pay for the other books. So I have two free short stories and the first book is lower priced than the other books. I won't mess around with the pricing too much.

As to marketing, buying ads and bookbub and all that is just unaffordable to me, so I try to get a 'net presence' where I respond to blog posts and articles in such a way that people interested by my responses can click my profile/avatar and end up on my blog with lists of books and links to the retailers. I also give interviews and try blogging at least once every two weeks.


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## 60911 (Jun 13, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> If cream always rises on the top, and a truly great book will rise on its own strength, then the most effective way to take your career to the next stage is to write truly great books. And yet, how much do we angst about that?
> 
> I think I need to spend a lot less time working on discoverability and a lot more time improving my writing.


According to the great Ed Robertson, something like 20-25% of the entire Kindle store on .com has no sales rank, and thus has NEVER SOLD A SINGLE COPY. You could have written the next Twilight Fifty Shades of Grey The Hunger Games, but if no one ever reads it...

Anyway, I wouldn't take that whole "cream rises to the top" as an axiom if I were you. Taste is awfully subjective, and one person's cream is another person's crap. But yes, spending your time working on craft is always a good idea.


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## Guest (Jan 26, 2014)

I do think there is a point, though, where a book is great enough that it sells itself. You might still need to give it an initial kick just to get the ball rolling, but after that, it takes off on wings of its own. So it's not entirely a function of discoverability, though that's certainly part of it. Because all of the discoverability in the world isn't going to do much for a book that falls short.


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## Bookslinger (Jan 12, 2014)

Excellent points.


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

EL: Lord A'Mighty! I actually completely agree with your post.

I've been sort of going through that lately - that "how do I up my game every book" thing - and while I strive to make the next one even better, my publisher doesn't give a crap, because he can't sell what I haven't written yet. He can only sell what I have. And apparently what I have written is good enough to sell a lot. Good for him, good for me.

Would that writing a great book were all it took. Or two. Or three. It's just not so that I can see. In point of fact, virtually all of the books that went huge during my lifetime varied from complete dross to pretty good, but not great. At least to me. They all had faults I can pinpoint, where they could have easily been better.

But the point is, they were good enough.

Malcolm Gladwell discussed IQ in Outliers. His finding is that once you have a group of folks with, say, at least 150 IQ, that there's no real advantage in terms of success with having 5, 15, 25, or 50 additional IQ points. It just doesn't translate into an advantage. Would that it did. Apparently, having an IQ of 150, compared to, say, 100, is a huge advantage. But 170 to 150? Not so much, if any.

My hunch is that, depending upon the genre, books share that trait. It's like that line at the carnival: You have to be at least this tall to get on the ride. Being taller does nothing appreciable. You just need to be that tall.

To Joe V's point, of course you have to strive for greatness every time you sit down to write. That's admirable, and you will probably get better the longer you ply your craft. But it's far too easy to get caught in the circular idea that the reason a book, or a body of work, isn't selling, is because it's just not good enough. I mean, sure, it's quite possible it isn't. But let's assume that, say, 10% of all books out there are at least tall enough to get on the ride in terms of quality. Nowhere near that many are going to do well. So of course the cream demonstrably doesn't rise to the top without a lot of help. Trad publishers release something like 800 new titles A DAY. One could well expect that most of those were selected by the gatekeepers because they meet a certain standard - they were tall enough. But only a few, if any, on any given day will catch fire. The rest will sink into the swamp.

I like to use Joe Konrath's experience as an example. He's making a ton of money from titles that were traditionally published, and that his publisher couldn't make really lucrative. Same books. Were they "not good enough" then? But "good enough" now?

No.

They are being marketed and promoted well now. Same thing between the covers. Same product.

I think where Joe V and I disagree is on the importance of marketing. Marketing a title, or marketing the author as a brand. I believe it's critical to do so. Those I know who are doing well also believe that. Contrary to the popular aphorism, books do not sell themselves.

In a past life I knew a lot of software and hardware engineers. Most were brilliant. But most of the companies they started, failed, because they believed that if they just built the best possible product, customers would come. That naive idea killed more start-ups than mismanagement, embezzlement, sloth, or stupidity.

Here's the truth. In EVERY industry, most start-ups fail. Even in industries where everyone's a genius, they fail. I've seen countless brilliant people with brilliant ideas fail. It's just the lay of the land. Reality. In venture capital, it's accepted as the terrain. In VC, you might back 100 companies, each one vetted by the brightest minds in the business, and only a handful will do anything but fail. The few that don't, if you're lucky, do OK, and if one goes huge, you're a rock star.

Most books, even really good books, fail to find an audience. All books tall enough being equal, I believe the difference between random luck/a lightning strike, and a sustainable career, is tilting the odds of discovery in your favor. Extremely hard work can help. Effective time and resource management can help. Effective marketing and promotions and fan interaction can help. Having a strategy that leverages your strengths (basically, a business plan for your career) helps. 

Courtney nailed it

And so did you. Congrats on going full time. That's a milestone, for sure.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Great analysis, Courtney. 



blakebooks said:


> Completely agree in all respects.
> 
> There. That's my one KB post a year where I don't start a ruckus.
> 
> See y'all next year!


I'm upset that this is the only post by you that won't cause a ruckus. 

Possible cause for a ruckus:

I find Russell's use of several contractions in four sentences over done.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I think there is another dimension here, and that can be described as quality or greatness. I actually just wrote a blog post on this subject. If you aren't striving for greatness with every book--not just doing your best, but striving to improve your skills so that your best becomes better--then improving your discoverability is only going to do so much for you.
> 
> I know, I know, whenever somebody says "quality is important," we all respond with "of course it is, we already assume that." But if we _really_ believe that striving for greatness is the first and most important step, why do we spend so much time and energy angst over promotional tactics and discoverability? If cream always rises on the top, and a truly great book will rise on its own strength, then the most effective way to take your career to the next stage is to write truly great books. And yet, how much do we angst about that?
> 
> I think I need to spend a lot less time working on discoverability and a lot more time improving my writing.


Cream does not always rise to the top in the book world. Who is to judge "quality"? It varies depending on the reader. For instance, most people recognize that Dan Brown has some sentences in his books that could be improved. Like smelling his burning flesh was his first clue (wouldn't pain be?) that he was too close to a flame. 
However, if he did improve those sentences, would it improve his sales? No.

Yes, books can be just "good enough" and become huge sellers on their own. For a more recent example, Hugh Howey's self published books became a hit. However, his publisher had him make changes to bring them out in hardcover/paperback. Did this make his books a better read? Sure. But did those changes really have any thing to do with increasing sales? Highly unlikely. 
Once discoverability has reached the mavens of word-of-mouth, the book was already "good enough" to take it to the highest level.


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Would like to notice that according to the phase your book cover design should also evolve and change. Blowing up author name doesn't make sense in Phase 1, it makes sense in phase 3. Redoing old covers when you hit that one makes sense too (if they were average only) because it can then act as an amplifier. 

Brilliant post! Great to see such insight!


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## Guest (Jan 26, 2014)

I do believe that marketing is important--when I say "cream rises to the top," I don't mean that as an excuse to blow off marketing altogether. You've got to have a great cover, you've got to write an enticing blurb, and you should probably keep an email list and have an active online presence of some sort. However, I think that all else equal the diminishing returns come sooner for marketing and promotion than they do for writing a truly great book.

In fact, I'm not convinced that there are diminishing returns on working to improve your writing. There are plenty of amazing books like _Wool_ that take off seemingly from nowhere based on the strength of the book. If you write something that really captivates people, that makes them want to run to all their friends and talk about how awesome it is, then beyond a basic marketing push to get those first few readers, the book going to take on a life of its own.

As with all these discussions, though I think it depends a lot based on genre. Exactly how it differs, though, I'm not so sure.



LisaGraceBooks said:


> Cream does not always rise to the top in the book world. Who is to judge "quality"? It varies depending on the reader. For instance, most people recognize that Dan Brown has some sentences in his books that could be improved. Like smelling his burning flesh was his first clue (wouldn't pain be?) that he was too close to a flame.
> However, if he did improve those sentences, would it improve his sales? No.
> 
> Yes, books can be just "good enough" and become huge sellers on their own. For a more recent example, Hugh Howey's self published books became a hit. However, his publisher had him make changes to bring them out in hardcover/paperback. Did this make his books a better read? Sure. But did those changes really have any thing to do with increasing sales? Highly unlikely.
> Once discoverability has reached the mavens of word-of-mouth, the book was already "good enough" to take it to the highest level.


But greatness in the book world is not just a function of bon mots and well-written sentences--it's much more a function of storytelling. I would say that Hugh Howey knocked it out of the park and wrote something truly great, which is why his books took off the way they did. Dan Brown captured something that really resonated with a lot of people, otherwise he wouldn't have sold as many books.

I'm not inclined to look at the bestseller list and say "this and that and that are all crap." I had a lot of issues with _The Hunger Games,_ for instance, but I could recognize what Suzanne Collins had done well that led so many people to love her books. Same with _Twilight._ If you take an honest look at any bestseller, I think you'll always find something that goes beyond "good enough" and rises to the level of "great."

Besides, you're not going to get anywhere by comparing yourself favorably to the bestsellers and wondering how they got to such a higher level of success. If you do that, you're just going to blind yourself with jealousy and envy, and end up missing the areas where you could improve.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I do think there is a point, though, where a book is great enough that it sells itself. You might still need to give it an initial kick just to get the ball rolling, but after that, it takes off on wings of its own. So it's not entirely a function of discoverability, though that's certainly part of it. Because all of the discoverability in the world isn't going to do much for a book that falls short.


I definitely think there are special books that are going to take off no matter what. But I often think this has more to do with the premise of the book than the actual book itself. Sure, if you have a kickass premise and you don't follow-through properly, then you're going to get people reading it and trashing it and telling other people to leave the thing alone.

But in general, because people (usually) buy books without having read them, it's either the premise that sells them on the book or a confidence that they'll like the book (because it's in the same series, by the same author, in a similar genre, recommended by a friend with similar tastes, etc.) So, books don't sell because of the content inside them, but on the *promise* of the content inside.

As a recent example, when I saw the premise for Brenna Aubrey's _At Any Price_ on the NA thread, I immediately knew that book was going to go BIG. The premise was amazingly compelling. And... I don't know *where* those premises come from. I don't know if working harder on craft makes it easier to come up with a compelling premise or not. I sure as heck don't know how to make them up, but I know one when I see one. I can even sometimes tell what elements of the premise make it so compelling. In Aubrey's case, it's the idea of being wanted so badly sight unseen that a man will go to obsessive lengths to get a woman. Like many romances, there's a tinge of danger in the idea, but the promise that somehow love will nullify this danger. As a reader, you are desperate to know *how* this somewhat dangerous-seeming man will become a viable romantic lead. But I could make up a premise involving all of those elements, and it wouldn't necessarily have the zing that _At Any Price_ does. I don't know why this is, and I half-wish it were different. However, I have to admit the unknowable bit of what is compelling is part of *why* things are compelling. (If that even makes any sense.)

Anyway, I think it's possible to have a good writing career without ever coming up with one of those gotta-read-that-now premises, and since they are so ephemeral, I don't know if trying to quantify and duplicate them is a recipe for anything other than madness. However, I would agree that striving to write a great book is always a worthwhile endeavor, no matter what.


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## Guest (Jan 26, 2014)

The thing is, you can't divorce an idea or premise from the execution of it. I'm a slushpile reader at a small semi-pro sf&f magazine, and I can tell you that nothing is worse than a great idea with poor execution. I just read one of those the other day, and it made me want to throw it out and rewrite it myself from scratch.

Another time, I read a story about a group of astronauts who go to another planet, find a bunch of sexy space babes waiting for them there, let down their guard, and get murdered in the night because the babes were actually aliens in disguise. It was almost exactly the same premise as "The Third Expedition" by Ray Bradbury (part of _The Martian Chronicles_), and yet there was such a huge contrast between the two that it showed me just how incredibly important the execution really is.


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## dianasg (Jan 8, 2010)

I don't think that all cream rises -- though I do think that even the "worst" bestsellers have something good to offer. I think when we talk about rising to the bestseller lists, it's more about writing what (a large number of) readers want, whatever that is.

I agree with Joe that premise + execution are key. 50 Shades, Hunger Games, Twilight, Harry Potter -- all of these are basically recycled premises that had been done before and didn't rise to the top. Which makes me think that execution is still a big part of it.



Joe Vasicek said:


> I know, I know, whenever somebody says "quality is important," we all respond with "of course it is, we already assume that." But if we _really_ believe that striving for greatness is the first and most important step, why do we spend so much time and energy angst over promotional tactics and discoverability? If cream always rises on the top, and a truly great book will rise on its own strength, then the most effective way to take your career to the next stage is to write truly great books. And yet, how much do we angst about that?


Honest question: why do you assume that we don't spend time and energy worrying about writing great books? Just because most of the threads here are about the business of self-pub - or because you feel like you need to worry more about writing - doesn't mean we aren't concerned about good writing.

On KB, I'd say it's far more productive to talk about concrete things like sales, marketing, promotion, and discoverability than to sit around arguing about what makes writing "good" or "great" -- those things are subjective. Craft is such an individual thing, and it's dependent on taste - I sure as heck don't want to debate craft on KB. Everybody thinks they're "right" and there is no "right": only opinion. At least with business talk I learn something, like how X strategy worked for X, and so on.


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

DianaGabriel said:


> On KB, I'd say it's far more productive to talk about concrete things like sales, marketing, promotion, and discoverability than to sit around arguing about what makes writing "good" or "great" -- those things are subjective. Craft is such an individual thing, and it's dependent on taste - I sure as heck don't want to debate craft on KB. Everybody thinks they're "right" and there is no "right": only opinion. At least with business talk I learn something, like how X strategy worked for X, and so on.


Unfortunately, I think what we're all beginning to realize is that X marketing strategies are no more "right" than anything else. They are highly individualized events, with numerous contributing factors, and therefore impossible to repeat. We can, however, learn generalities from discussions of both business strategy and craft strategy, and then take ideas we've heard, put our own spins on them, and then experiment with them on our own. I'm quite okay with craft discussions on the boards, and I wouldn't want anyone to think that they were discouraged.  But, of course, those that aren't interested in them can steer clear.


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## olefish (Jan 24, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> The thing is, you can't divorce an idea or premise from the execution of it. I'm a slushpile reader at a small semi-pro sf&f magazine, and I can tell you that nothing is worse than a great idea with poor execution. I just read one of those the other day, and it made me want to throw it out and rewrite it myself from scratch.
> 
> Another time, I read a story about a group of astronauts who go to another planet, find a bunch of sexy space babes waiting for them there, let down their guard, and get murdered in the night because the babes were actually aliens in disguise. It was almost exactly the same premise as "The Third Expedition" by Ray Bradbury (part of _The Martian Chronicles_), and yet there was such a huge contrast between the two that it showed me just how incredibly important the execution really is.


Editors and amazon readers are very different beasts. Many published writers have documented difficulty in selling on kindle stories that were previously published to pro or semi-pro paying mags. Editors are picky about originality and polished sentences. The amazon reader who trawls the bestsellers lists don't care as much. As long as they are entertained they're happy to pay you a few few bucks. Case in the point, There's a certain fantasy that is dominating the YA epic fantasy and sword sorcery lists. More than a few complained about its juvenile plot and bad editing and unoriginal storyline, and yet it's dominates the lists, 9 books and counting.


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## Guest (Jan 26, 2014)

DianaGabriel said:


> I don't think that all cream rises -- though I do think that even the "worst" bestsellers have something good to offer. I think when we talk about rising to the bestseller lists, it's more about writing what (a large number of) readers want, whatever that is.
> 
> I agree with Joe that premise + execution are key. 50 Shades, Hunger Games, Twilight, Harry Potter -- all of these are basically recycled premises that had been done before and didn't rise to the top. Which makes me think that execution is still a big part of it.
> 
> ...


I think we do, but I get the impression that for many in this community, including myself until just recently, it's a secondary concern next to discoverability. And I think that's a mistake, not only from an artistic perspective, but from a business one as well.


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I think we do, but I get the impression that for many in this community, including myself until just recently, it's a secondary concern next to discoverability. And I think that's a mistake, not only from an artistic perspective, but from a business one as well.


Why would you get that impression? I think for the majority of people here, it's a given that quality is a must. Quality is less of a concern, because it's already a focus and it's something each individual needs to determine and work on for themselves. Discoverability is applicable to all, and it's the biggest hurdle that most of us face and it's also something that is ever-changing. What worked last year may not work as well this year, so the topic is always evolving. You can have the best book in the world, but if no one finds it, it's not going to sell very well.


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## ElleChambers (Nov 5, 2013)

I am most definitely in Phase 0 with only two micro collections of shorts out and a novella that's not moving. When my first volume of short stories came out in late September of last year, it was priced at .99 and I still couldn't get a sale. So when the second volume was released the day before Halloween, I made both free on Smashwords and saw an immediate uptick in downloads thanks to the genre I was writing in and the impending holiday. Amazon, being extremely inconsistent, permafreed volume one, but not two - I got over 600 downloads in a matter of weeks with no promo other than me posting about it on Twitter and my blog that has, like, ten serious followers.

Since then, I've had close to 2,000 downloads on the permafree from Amazon and Smashwords. Not staggering numbers, but pretty decent for two short stories and a flash piece. I've gotten some pretty good reviews on it and this month, sales of volume two have doubled from what they were a month ago. That's not saying much since the collection isn't hitting big numbers or any lists, but it's doing better than I thought it would so I can't complain. So while I think the original post makes some very valid points, as do a lot of the responses, I also think permafreeing a book that's not selling due to visibility issues _can_ work to boost discoverability. The problem is figuring out whether your stuff's not selling because people don't know it exists or if it's not selling because people just don't want it.

But back on track - if your work's not selling, why not make it free even if it's the only thing you have on the market? You might as well since you're not making money anyway. And if you promote that permafree (which I myself will get around to doing when volume three comes out) and people snatch it up, you may start getting reviews which will in turn increase the amount of downloads you get thereby increasing the odds that when you release something new, people may buy it. I'm new to all this so I could be wrong, just sharing observations on what's working for me.


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## mrv01d (Apr 4, 2011)

Courtney...that post is awesome and mirrors my thoughts on the topic.

For those wondering how to get to the next phase...

1. Group promotions with other authors in your genre

2. Ads

3. Give away piles of ARCs. Piles of them and hope that readers will not just review but respond to your work.

4. Gather readers onto a mailing list _and_ have a content plan that keeps them engaged.

5. Write something short that emulates the most successful books in your genre. Set it free.

6. Follow the hot trends in your genre and catch the wave.

7. Sign up for blog hops.

8. Release the next book sooner as opposed to later. Plus the one after that.

9. Do something every month, ideally planning out months in advance that will help you build a readership. Meaning, every month you have to do something that helps you connect with your audience. The months you don't have a new release, you run an ad. Or join a blog hop (or start one if you can't find one). Something must always be going in the background to push your brand forward. When you get bigger, you'll want 2 or 3 things a month.

You're not selling a book, you're building a readership. Selling a book won't support you financially but a readership will.

HTH

M


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## Jay Allan (Aug 20, 2012)

I think the word "quality" should be used very sparsely in these threads, or not at all.  First, past some basics, it is highly subjective.  What does it mean?  Decent grammar aside, what makes a good story is different for different readers.  There are definitely huge bestsellers out there that millions of people love...and I would rather wash my car than fight my way through them (and I'm not alone).  Are they quality?  Are those who like them uneducated lemmings, not as able as me to judge their "quality."  That's a nice, arrogant POV, isn't it?  Yet to me, these books hardly represent quality, though I know the to the market as a whole they do.  The whole argument quickly becomes an ego-driven brawl between people convinced they are the ones who understand true quality.  Utter pointlessness.  Besides, the world has enough arrogant fools producing CO2. 

Vague terms usually only serve to cover the absence of solid arguments.  I take it as a patently obvious baseline assumption that any serious author is trying to write the best story he or she can, given whatever project he or she is producing.  Given the subjective nature of "quality" and the inevitability that any real discussion on the quality of self-pubbed books is going to turn into a quagmire of near mob violence, I'm not sure of the usefulness of the "quality" debate in a marketing thread such as this.  Specific aspects of writing in a thread so dedicated is another thing, but just saying write better "quality" seems pretty pointless.  

Discoverability and marketing are more productive areas to discuss and explore, as there is at least some objectivity to the topics.  There are so many things that go into the sometimes seemingly random and unlikely act of a reader taking a closer look at a book.  I've stood a million times in a bookstore looking at books on the bottom shelf utterly ignoring many that were spine out with a hard-to-read font and poor contrast.  That's a marketing failure.  That book means nothing to me until I get tempted to take a closer look.  Why would a publisher select a title font that is hard to read?  Yet many books are designed like that.  Your covers aren't intended to end up in the Louvre...they're intended to sell your books.

Self-publishers, even on this message board, have covers of varying degrees of effectiveness.  After all the discussions, why doesn't every self-pubbed book have professional-quality covers...ones that were tested at thumbnail sizes and still look good?  How much time do you spend playing with your keywords and trying to track effectiveness?  Do you think of your titles in terms of catching someone's attention when you have maybe a quarter second to do it?  Do you write your first few pages thinking that your purchasers may be looking at them before buying?  Before we even get to bookbub and paid search and a hundred other types of marketing, are you maximizing the impact when you do get someone to look at your book?

Marketing is more than advertising.  It is packaging...even deciding what to write.  If you write to satisfy your inner muse, write whatever you want.  If you write to pay the bills, pay attention to the market and target your books to your potential readers.  That's marketing too.  

How about your blurbs?  How much time and effort do you really put into those few paragraphs (and, please only a few...I've seen some that looked like Wikipedia articles about the book)?  I work on my blurb the entire time I'm writing the book, reading it over and over, changing a word here, a word there.  I can't think of anything more important.  I can't think of anything that makes it more likely for me to buy a book than a blurb that catches my attention (quickly...with me the reader, you've got maybe ten words before I hit the back button).

I think a lot of people don't understand or simply do not like the marketing aspects of self-publishing.  Not to be cold, but tough.  That's what financial success usually requires in your chosen profession.  If you don't want to give it your best, then write for personal satisfaction, and consider any money you make a nice bonus.  Or keep burying publishers under mountains of submissions.  But arguments that marketing isn't important, that "cream" will rise to the top, are illogical.  How does something rise to the top when no one finds it.  By that argument, a great book (whatever that is) would be found and become a bestseller no matter how bad the cover and the blurb. 

Do you have a mailing list?  Do you pay attention to what percentage of purchasers sign up, and do you play around with different styles of requesting people to sign up?  

How much thought do you give to your work/release schedule?  Especially if you have multiple series.  I'm constantly twisting and turning, trying to get new things out without making fans wait too long for the next book in an existing series.  Do you think about things like this?  Balancing keeping fans interested and satisfied while also broadening your base?  Those are marketing considerations as well.

Do you try to learn marketing techniques so you can understand and develop your own strategies...or do you troll message boards seeking to copy exactly what someone else does?  This is the old give a man a fish, teach him to fish thing.  Select.  Perma-free.  Facebook, twitter, blogs, etc.  You need to learn how people have used things and then apply that knowledge to your own strategy.  You can't just copy things if you want to succeed...you need to UNDERSTAND them and why they worked...and have the ability to mold them to your needs.  Genres are different.  Writers are different.  Fanbases are different.  How can you possibly make good decisions as the market changes if you don't understand how and why thinks work and don't work for you?  Yes, it's a lot more work.  Who promised you it would be easy to sell thousands of books?

I've never been in Select, never had a free book, but I still managed to sell 172,000 in 2013.  I considered making a book one free at times, but to date I've managed to exceed my goals without that.  I often make a book one 99 cents, usually doing so when the sales boost from the last book has worn off, but the new book isn't ready yet.  But none of this is an "off the shelf" strategy...it's the product of gleaning ideas from places like Kboards, experimenting, and reacting to what I saw happening. Sometimes I'll throw in a couple email blasts form the smaller (not Bookbub) services, just to prop a series up and keep everything in the sub-genre top 100 until the next book comes out.  I watch may rankings every day so I can make rational decisions about what is needed and what is not. 

Things like Select and free get treated like religions sometimes, which is harmful to your development as a marketer.  There's nothing wrong with having free books, but there's no all-encompassing reason you need to have them either.  Clearly, the strategy has worked wonders for some...and less for others. 

Lastly, do you look at what happens to you (sales increases or decreases...changes in reviews...responses to mailing lists...numbers signing up for mailing lists...etc.) and constantly analyze it, tinkering and experimenting to add fuel to things that are working and make changes to those that aren't.

A lot of people keep looking for an off the shelf strategy for success, but there is no such thing.  A lot of people have success with perma-free, but it's not just making a book free that makes them a success.  The rest of their marketing, the product line of books they've created, the things like mailing lists they use to leverage existing readership into sales to get more exposure on Amazon to get more readers...it is all crucial to the success these people enjoy.


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

My main issue is that I can't bloody find my way out of Phase 1. Most of the authors I keep running into are Phase 3 and above, so I'm constantly drowning in all this information that isn't meant for me because I'm still a nobody. It's horrifically frustrating in your first six months of publication when all the help you read about is for Joe Somebody, not Joe Nobody. Honestly, if someone can point me in the right direction, I'll die a happy author. 

Sorry, not trying to post a sob story, I actually have a question. I'm slated to release the second book in my trilogy in July of this year. I was going to do the permafree because I hear that it's the best thing to do for book series. However, I am still Joe Nobody and I have been busting my butt trying new techniques to get someone to buy my first book because there's no point releasing a second one if no one read the first one. In the event that I still don't get eyes on the book, should I not even bother with permafree?


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## 48306 (Jul 6, 2011)

I love this, Courtney, a very apt description, and yes, I think this does follow how things have flowed for me at the stage I'm in right now.


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## mrv01d (Apr 4, 2011)

kyokominamino said:


> My main issue is that I can't bloody find my way out of Phase 1. Most of the authors I keep running into are Phase 3 and above, so I'm constantly drowning in all this information that isn't meant for me because I'm still a nobody. It's horrifically frustrating in your first six months of publication when all the help you read about is for Joe Somebody, not Joe Nobody. Honestly, if someone can point me in the right direction, I'll die a happy author.
> 
> Sorry, not trying to post a sob story, I actually have a question. I'm slated to release the second book in my trilogy in July of this year. I was going to do the permafree because I hear that it's the best thing to do for book series. However, I am still Joe Nobody and I have been busting my butt trying new techniques to get someone to buy my first book because there's no point releasing a second one if no one read the first one. In the event that I still don't get eyes on the book, should I not even bother with permafree?


Did you see my post above? That outlined some ideas on how to jump to the next level?

On the trilogy...whether to make the first book permafree or not, I would be inclined to wait until book three is out before doing permafree. I might drop book 1 down to 99 cents on a permanent basis (to make it more attractive, perhaps get Amazon to prize match so readers feel like they're getting a deal).

If you are getting very low sales, you have to revisit your cover and blurb and even categories. Then if that doesn't help, really look hard at your voice...it may not be resonating with readers.

M


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## RW Bennett (Mar 3, 2011)

Great thread! Posts like Courtney's and the responses are why I like to lurk on this board.


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## SLGray (Dec 21, 2013)

kyokominamino said:


> Sorry, not trying to post a sob story, I actually have a question. I'm slated to release the second book in my trilogy in July of this year. I was going to do the permafree because I hear that it's the best thing to do for book series. However, I am still Joe Nobody and I have been busting my butt trying new techniques to get someone to buy my first book because there's no point releasing a second one if no one read the first one. In the event that I still don't get eyes on the book, should I not even bother with permafree?


I think if you ignore the level of the author, you might find something of worth to take away from the threads meant for Joe Somebody rather than specifically you and I. I usually do, at least.

I don't think most of us make a career on just one book. Almost all of the Joe Somebodys I've seen have many more than one. Try seeing the indie publishing route as a long game rather than a quick path to success? So yes, I think you should release the second book and the third and -then- think about making it free, temporarily, to see if that helps drive sales of the other two. If it does, leave it free. If not, set it to .99 and go from there.

You have double-digit reviews and a 4+ star rating after six months. That sounds like a pretty good start from all I've read. Obviously I'm not an expert, but I say don't give up yet.


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## CJArcher (Jan 22, 2011)

A great post, Courtney. I hadn't really thought of the effectiveness of permafree in terms on the author's phase before, but it makes sense. I would say my own path is following this pattern, and is a good reminder of what I need to do to get to the next phase.

For anyone trying to get out of phase 1, I agree with everything in this post:



mrv01d said:


> Courtney...that post is awesome and mirrors my thoughts on the topic.
> 
> For those wondering how to get from 1 to 2...
> 
> ...


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

mrv01d said:


> Did you see my post above? That outlined some ideas on how to jump to the next level?
> 
> On the trilogy...whether to make the first book permafree or not, I would be inclined to wait until book three is out before doing permafree. I might drop book 1 down to 99 cents on a permanent basis (to make it more attractive, perhaps get Amazon to prize match so readers feel like they're getting a deal).
> 
> ...


Read your reply. I've done items 2, 5, and 7 on your recommendation list. Item 1 I don't know where to go to sign up for something like that, but I think I might be able to find it. I didn't even know about Item 3 until after I was published, so you bet your bottom dollar I'll do that with my second book. Definitely a good strategy to have now that I know about it. I still don't know how to do Item 4, but that's because my website is still new and only spammers are registered for it. How do you suggest I go about creating a mailing list?

Hmm, that's not a bad suggestion doing a buck instead of free if I don't get the traction I need before I get there. Thank you for the suggestion!

So far, I'm hearing that people love the cover. I submitted the book's blurb to a popular writing community forum (Agent Query Connect, which specializes in that area) and I edited that SOB until it they said it sounded pretty good. However, you're right. It's been six months with few sales so maybe it's not exciting enough. I will submit it again and see what they say. I think my voice is good because based on the reviews I've gotten so far, people actually do like the book. The problem is getting them to read it. Once they're in, the general response seems to be quite positive. I've even had two people ask for a signed copy because they enjoyed it so much.

Again, thank you for taking the time to respond. I really appreciate it and I will take the advice to heart.


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

kyokominamino, if you have a trilogy that won't be complete for a couple of years, you may need to adjust your expectations of success between now and when that trilogy is completed. You may also want to consider writing complimentary shorter pieces that can be included in some cross-promotional efforts with similar authors, what mrv01d mentioned.

My experience is very similar to what Courtney outlined. I need to pull together some graphs, but basically, it was really hard for me to go from Step 1 to Step 2. Six months of doing pretty much everything recommended for my genre, except that I didn't launch with multiple titles ready/near-ready. And while publishing more titles has helped, that wasn't what pushed me forward in a big way--that was being invited into a multi-author bundle.

I'd experienced micro-bursts of discoverability before, with 99 cent sales and free offerings/ads, and my metrics showed that i was heading in the right direction, growing a little bit every month. But being in a bundle saw an immediate jump. When that bundle went on sale for 99 cents? My other sales took an immediate jump, and my *mailing list sign-up*, which is even more valuable to me than any individual sale, went through the roof.

We'll see what happens next month: I'm trying permafree again, with a different book (I have a prequel novella, which I had on permafree in September/October, and the first novel in my series, which I'm going to try as free next month), and I'm officially launching it with a BookBub ad (although it'll be free for 1-2 weeks before that, so I'll have some comparative data before that assist); I'm also releasing my first new title post-discoverability bump.

I'll report back. But I expect my report to be that Courtney is bang on.


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

SLGray said:


> I think if you ignore the level of the author, you might find something of worth to take away from the threads meant for Joe Somebody rather than specifically you and I. I usually do, at least.
> 
> I don't think most of us make a career on just one book. Almost all of the Joe Somebodys I've seen have many more than one. Try seeing the indie publishing route as a long game rather than a quick path to success? So yes, I think you should release the second book and the third and -then- think about making it free, temporarily, to see if that helps drive sales of the other two. If it does, leave it free. If not, set it to .99 and go from there.
> 
> You have double-digit reviews and a 4+ star rating after six months. That sounds like a pretty good start from all I've read. Obviously I'm not an expert, but I say don't give up yet.


Oh, I surely still make notes and save forums/pages with info that'll be relevant when I hit Phase 2. I spend a few hours every day simply reading forums and articles I find about self publishing--both the craft and the marketing. I hope I don't sound like I'm not doing anything to become a better author. It's just that some stuff doesn't do much good when the books I've sold haven't even left the double digits.

And I'm hearing more and more that authors make money off of multiple books, so I'm on the right track at the very least. I have the trilogy for this series, and then I'm working on an epic high fantasy novel, and I'm currently doing story notes for a third and separate urban fantasy series. Believe me, I know that it takes a lot of wheels to get this thing moving. However, based on what you and another author have said, I think I might just move TBP to .99 cents once the sequel comes out since permafree might not work for me until I have a following.

Thank you. I have no intention of giving up. I'll either make it or die trying. Quitting ain't an option. Writing is like air to me. I'll do it even if it gets me nowhere.


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## mrv01d (Apr 4, 2011)

Based on your response and mixing it with my experience... the biggest mistake is you're not collecting readers aka the mailing list.

There are some threads here on mailing lists, find them, read them. Then google mailing lists, read some articles.

Once you set up your mailing list, you'll be able to build a direct point of contact with readers. Market to them, give them incentives and you should start to see improved visibility in the algos. The bigger your reader base = the more books they buy = the more people see your books on the bookseller sites = more mailing list sign ups as new readers discover you.

It's a snowball.

M


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

Zoe York said:


> kyokominamino, if you have a trilogy that won't be complete for a couple of years, you may need to adjust your expectations of success between now and when that trilogy is completed. You may also want to consider writing complimentary shorter pieces that can be included in some cross-promotional efforts with similar authors, what mrv01d mentioned.
> 
> My experience is very similar to what Courtney outlined. I need to pull together some graphs, but basically, it was really hard for me to go from Step 1 to Step 2. Six months of doing pretty much everything recommended for my genre, except that I didn't launch with multiple titles ready/near-ready. And while publishing more titles has helped, that wasn't what pushed me forward in a big way--that was being invited into a multi-author bundle.
> 
> ...


I've actually been working on that. I've written a short story collection called "Seven," which will be a set of stories with my other main protagonist coming to terms with living as a human being and dealing with the temptation from the seven deadly sins. However, if you're saying it could increase my chances of being discovered, I will throw some gas on the fire and finish the collection for publication this year rather than waiting.

Well, now I need to ask another question: is one novel a year too little? I can write some complimentary stories and pieces and publish those. I thought a novel per year is a reasonable goal, but then again, I'm new at this. The entire trilogy is written. The second one is about to be handed off my editor, and I just started the first round of editing for the third one. Am I moving too slow? Should I consider moving the publication date of the third novel up? I thought a novel per year would give each one enough time to circulate and gather attention, but I could be wrong.

Thanks for your advice. I appreciate it.


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## Zoe York (May 12, 2013)

Oh my goodness, yes, if you've got them written, move them into editing! They're not doing you any good sitting in a drawer (or in a computer folder, whatever).


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## dianasg (Jan 8, 2010)

valeriec80 said:


> Unfortunately, I think what we're all beginning to realize is that X marketing strategies are no more "right" than anything else. They are highly individualized events, with numerous contributing factors, and therefore impossible to repeat. We can, however, learn generalities from discussions of both business strategy and craft strategy, and then take ideas we've heard, put our own spins on them, and then experiment with them on our own. I'm quite okay with craft discussions on the boards, and I wouldn't want anyone to think that they were discouraged.  But, of course, those that aren't interested in them can steer clear.


I agree that "right" is almost always subjective. And I don't think any kind of discussion should be discouraged. But I think there is a reason we have far more business threads than craft threads, and it's NOT because the writers here care more about business than craft.



Joe Vasicek said:


> I think we do, but I get the impression that for many in this community, including myself until just recently, it's a secondary concern next to discoverability. And I think that's a mistake, not only from an artistic perspective, but from a business one as well.


So you're making an assumption about what others care about. Fine - but call it what it is.

Here's a thought - please stop talking about what "we" think/believe/feel. If something is true FOR YOU, fire away. Speak for yourself. Stop speaking for others.

I agree that if you (general you) care more about marketing than writing a good book, you won't get far. But I don't presume that because the writers here talk about things like discoverability that they aren't just as concerned with improving their craft. And if they aren't? That's none of my business.


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## Christa Wick (Nov 1, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> ...
> If cream always rises on the top, and a truly great book will rise on its own strength, then the most effective way to take your career to the next stage is to write truly great books. ...


In case it hasn't been pointed out already, that cream always rises to the top is an insidious lie outside the dairy industry.


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## hs (Feb 15, 2011)

mrv01d said:


> Courtney...that post is awesome and mirrors my thoughts on the topic.
> 
> For those wondering how to get from 1 to 2...
> 
> ...


Thanks for the advice!

I have a dumb question regarding #3 ("Give away piles of ARCs"). Would that be the same as making a book temporarily free, except that you do it before it's published? Is there an advantage to giving away ARCs over making a book free after it's published?


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

I'd say I'm around level 1.5. Can't count on the algorithms sustaining anything for me yet, but I have had a couple of decent months, before sliding back down to mediocre sales. I hope I have a chance of slipping into stage 2 when I publish the third novel in my series.

I haven't made the first novel in my series permafree yet for the simple matter that with only a couple of books out, it's still making a significant amount of my money. I do do regular free promotions through select, and the huge numbers of free books have helped me get reviews, signups for my mailing list (that I so should have started earlier!), and most of the sales of my second book obviously. 

Definitely going to be trying the multi-author box set, and the permafree once my third book is out (though maybe not straight away, I may give the new book a run in select first).


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

re: ARCs - I routinely give away copies on LibraryThing and GoodReads. I've been doing Netgalley giveaways, but haven't seen any huge rush of reviews from them - this last one, I think I got 4 reviews total, and only 2 of those were posted on Amazon - the other two (3-stars both of them) were just posted on Netgalley.  I'm still not sure of the RoI on Netgalley, and don't know whether I'll do it for any of the picture books I have planned for this next quarter.


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## mrv01d (Apr 4, 2011)

hs said:


> Thanks for the advice!
> 
> I have a dumb question regarding #3 ("Give away piles of ARCs"). Would that be the same as making a book temporarily free, except that you do it before it's published? Is there an advantage to giving away ARCs over making a book free after it's published?


It's you giving books to readers you've solicited. It is not making the book free.

M


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## mrv01d (Apr 4, 2011)

beccaprice said:


> re: ARCs - I routinely give away copies on LibraryThing and GoodReads. I've been doing Netgalley giveaways, but haven't seen any huge rush of reviews from them - this last one, I think I got 4 reviews total, and only 2 of those were posted on Amazon - the other two (3-stars both of them) were just posted on Netgalley. I'm still not sure of the RoI on Netgalley, and don't know whether I'll do it for any of the picture books I have planned for this next quarter.


Yeah, NG isn't all that awesome. If it ever was.


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## rex kusler (Feb 12, 2010)

blakebooks said:


> EL: Lord A'Mighty! I actually completely agree with your post.
> 
> I've been sort of going through that lately - that "how do I up my game every book" thing - and while I strive to make the next one even better, my publisher doesn't give a crap, because he can't sell what I haven't written yet. He can only sell what I have. And apparently what I have written is good enough to sell a lot. Good for him, good for me.
> 
> ...


Some brilliant minds at work in this thread, and this post in particular is worth hanging on the wall. All of my favorite books have been top sellers that were flawed, but I was drawn in anyway because I was entertained. I worked in Silicon Valley for 30 years and the people I knew who were successful weren't necessarily bright or creative. They were driven and ruthless. The meek, creative ones usually ended up being used.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I do think there is a point, though, where a book is great enough that it sells itself. You might still need to give it an initial kick just to get the ball rolling, but after that, it takes off on wings of its own. So it's not entirely a function of discoverability, though that's certainly part of it. Because all of the discoverability in the world isn't going to do much for a book that falls short.


Well, yeah. If your book is good and has the potential to appeal to a reasonably wide audience, sooner or later word of mouth kicks in and sells the book for you. IF you give it that initial kick so that people know it's out there. How wide the potential appeal is makes a huge difference in how well you can expect a book to do. That's just simple math. If a book is in a genre that has a ton of readers, and has the potential to appeal to a large portion of those readers, you can expect it to do better than a book in a genre with relatively few readers, and also it's a niche book.

Personally, I think my book Baptism for the Dead is objectively far, far better in every unit of book-measure than any of my other books. Style, plot, characters, theme, whatever. Way better, by several miles. But it sells 1 - 3 copies for every 100 copies of my broad-appeal books, and I expect that it probably always will. Why? It's literary fiction (small audience to begin with) and it's niche (stories about losing one's religion...not the most popular niche in the market.) It doesn't matter how good that book is: mathematically, it doesn't stand a chance to sell as well as my historical fiction (and I expect my romance to sell even better, when I start writing that later this year.)

So regardless of how good a book is, there are some other factors that influence whether the word-of-mouth machine will float that cream all the way to the top. However, for the most part you're correct in that a good book will eventually sell itself (or to put it in a more technically correct light, a good book will eventually be sold by readers.) You just have to put in the work to get a good book to the point where it starts selling itself. From there on in, you can coast for a few years (at least for that book) before you need to start promoting it again.


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## Jeroen Steenbeeke (Feb 3, 2012)

Excellent post. I'm sad to say I'm still in phase 1, and not all that sure what my next step should be. Various promos seem to give me short bursts of sales on the 2nd and 3rd book (sequels to the permafree), but no lasting increase. Despite having published my first book in 2011, this year is the first one in which my ebook activities are going to have a noticeable effect on my taxes.

There's plenty of things I still haven't tried. I'm very busy writing my next series, I do cross-authors promotions every so often (they do seem to help a bit) and I'm slowly building my mailing list. It probably wouldn't hurt to get A LOT more reviews though.


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## Guest (Jan 27, 2014)

Christa Wick said:


> In case it hasn't been pointed out already, that cream always rises to the top is an insidious lie outside the dairy industry.


I'm not convinced that it is. Certainly a base level of marketing is necessary, but beyond that I see most books standing or falling on their own merits, not on promotional techniques or gimmicks. It may take some time for a great book to come into it's own, but with infinite digital shelf space and no such thing as out-of-print for ebooks, it's ludicrous to say that a book is a failure just because it didn't take off upon release.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

blakebooks said:


> EL: Lord A'Mighty! I actually completely agree with your post.


Good god! Everybody duck...frogs and brimstone are about to start raining from the heavens. 

I like your comparison to Gladwell's IQ study. I think you're right about that. Beyond a certain level of basic "goodness," there's not a gigantic advantage to being The Best Writer in the Universe when it comes to sales, and what work you do to stay constantly visible and to find new readers is the only advantage you've got once you've crossed that threshold.


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## Guest (Jan 27, 2014)

ElHawk said:


> Well, yeah. If your book is good and has the potential to appeal to a reasonably wide audience, sooner or later word of mouth kicks in and sells the book for you. IF you give it that initial kick so that people know it's out there. How wide the potential appeal is makes a huge difference in how well you can expect a book to do. That's just simple math. If a book is in a genre that has a ton of readers, and has the potential to appeal to a large portion of those readers, you can expect it to do better than a book in a genre with relatively few readers, and also it's a niche book.
> 
> Personally, I think my book Baptism for the Dead is objectively far, far better in every unit of book-measure than any of my other books. Style, plot, characters, theme, whatever. Way better, by several miles. But it sells 1 - 3 copies for every 100 copies of my broad-appeal books, and I expect that it probably always will. Why? It's literary fiction (small audience to begin with) and it's niche (stories about losing one's religion...not the most popular niche in the market.) It doesn't matter how good that book is: mathematically, it doesn't stand a chance to sell as well as my historical fiction (and I expect my romance to sell even better, when I start writing that later this year.)
> 
> So regardless of how good a book is, there are some other factors that influence whether the word-of-mouth machine will float that cream all the way to the top. However, for the most part you're correct in that a good book will eventually sell itself (or to put it in a more technically correct light, a good book will eventually be sold by readers.) You just have to put in the work to get a good book to the point where it starts selling itself. From there on in, you can coast for a few years (at least for that book) before you need to start promoting it again.


Yes. And I don't mean to say that as an excuse to not do any marketing, rather, to recognize that on balance, you're better off working on your writing skills until you can write the kind of story that captures readers and turns them into fans.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Jeroen Steenbeeke said:


> Excellent post. I'm sad to say I'm still in phase 1, and not all that sure what my next step should be.


Don't be sad. Everybody starts in Phase 1! Actually, I guess everybody starts in Phase 0.

There's a good numbered list in this thread of how to get from the lower phases to the higher phases. I'm sorry I didn't note exactly where it is or who wrote it, but it was good advice! I think it's on page 2 or 3. Go back through the thread and scroll down the pages until you see a list with like 10 numbered lines. Read it. You'll get some ideas.


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## zandermarks (May 20, 2013)

Joe Vasicek said:


> I'm not convinced that it is. Certainly a base level of marketing is necessary, but beyond that I see most books standing or falling on their own merits, not on promotional techniques or gimmicks. It may take some time for a great book to come into its own, but with infinite digital shelf space and no such thing as out-of-print for ebooks, it's ludicrous to say that a book is a failure just because it didn't take off upon release.


I'm going to sort of split the difference with Joe on this one. (Since we're using a dairy metaphor, I assume this qualifies as "Half and Half." Ba-da-BING!)

I think there is some inherent tension between art and commerce, and in my own writing, if I am faced with a choice between doing the best work I can versus doing what my "inner publisher" says I should be doing, the writer is going to win out over the publisher. Case in point: My inner publisher tells me I should have three books done by now. My inner writer says I need to let my character cook a bit longer. Verdict: My character's going to cook a bit longer, and I am going to take my sweet time on the second book just as I did the first one.

Does this mean my book is going to rise like cream? If it does, it's certainly not going to do it on its own. So I am doing some serious work on rebranding the first book (and the series to follow) and thinking through the marketing, what I've been doing right and what I've been doing wrong.

The marketing no-brainer, of course, is: Get a series written already.

But from a long-term perspective, I think my best bet (and really the only one I'll be happy with anyway) is to write the way I write, which is slow and picky, and in the meantime keep working on winning over those Stage 1 (or adjusted Stage 0) readers.


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## David J Normoyle (Jun 22, 2012)

kyokominamino said:


> Well, now I need to ask another question: is one novel a year too little? I can write some complimentary stories and pieces and publish those. I thought a novel per year is a reasonable goal, but then again, I'm new at this. The entire trilogy is written. The second one is about to be handed off my editor, and I just started the first round of editing for the third one. Am I moving too slow? Should I consider moving the publication date of the third novel up? I thought a novel per year would give each one enough time to circulate and gather attention, but I could be wrong.
> 
> Thanks for your advice. I appreciate it.


Get the books published as quickly as you can. There's no benefit in waiting and a huge benefit in getting them all out immediately.


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## RTEdwins (Jan 16, 2014)

I haven't read through all the other comments, so I apologize if I'm reiterating what someone else already said, but true to your post's overall point, not every strategy will be the same but more than this, not every strategy will work out the same for every person. You talked about how permafree won't get you out of phase one, and I'd have to disagree to a point. Is it a "sure fire" way to get out of phase 1, no, but can it work? Absolutely!!

It just depends on the circumstances. First, if the book is good, it's going to get attention no matter what, but making it free reduces buyer remorse, increases "walk-in" customers, and leads to a lot of word-of-mouth promotion. I've done 0 promotion over the last 6 months, yet my book keeps getting reviewed, rated, and promoted by my readers. Second, perma-free strategies work best for books in a series. If you are writing stand alone novels, there is a good chance making one book free, won't necessarily translate into sales of your other works if the other works are too dissimilar or in different genres. If you are like me, however, and your free book is the first in a series of books, you have a huge chance to capture return readers. My novel ends with a pretty big cliffhanger and the number 1 thing readers want to know is: when is the next book going to be available? This is translating into sales because the readers already know the product is something they will probably like. If they liked the first one enough to want to read more, they won't balk at the 2.99 price tag to keep the story going. Third, no matter what, if you aren't engaging with your fans/readers, you aren't going to sell books regardless of its price. Maybe direct promotion isn't your big thing, but if you don't have a blog or a website or any sort of system for engaging and entertaining your readers on a regular basis, they are going to forget about you whether they paid for the book or it was free. Offering a book for free, plus also being engaging with your readers is really going to help you out. Those readers are going to tell their friends about you and your work and that will translate to sales down the road.


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## Andrew Ashling (Nov 15, 2010)

kyokominamino said:


> Well, now I need to ask another question: is one novel a year too little? I can write some complimentary stories and pieces and publish those. I thought a novel per year is a reasonable goal, but then again, I'm new at this. The entire trilogy is written. The second one is about to be handed off my editor, and I just started the first round of editing for the third one. Am I moving too slow? Should I consider moving the publication date of the third novel up? I thought a novel per year would give each one enough time to circulate and gather attention, but I could be wrong.





David J Normoyle said:


> Get the books published as quickly as you can. There's no benefit in waiting and a huge benefit in getting them all out immediately.


I think there is a benefit in releasing them one by one.

Each time one of your books (and your name/brand) lands on Amazon's new releases list. I think for thirty days or so. For three books that is 90 days you could be on a list that makes your books highly visible.

For the exact rhythm of release you'll have to ask someone else. A lot of authors here have far more experience than I have with this tactic.


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## Writerly Writer (Jul 19, 2012)

I read this post the other day, and even though I always trust Courtney's advice, there was a part of me that felt a little disappointed at the factual content of her message. Not because it's unfactual, but because it was true. 

I'm still in phase 0-1, and I've been working on my fantasy series for a while now, probably a year and a bit. I'm about to finish my third book and I was really counting on Permafree to help give me a visibility boost. So, when I read this post my stomach kind of sunk, because I realised that I might need to do more work than just set the first free once the third book is out. 

Anyway, so yesterday I had already booked in my first book, Concealed Power, for a 1 day select free day. I also promoted the second book in the series on one other site, and reduced its cost from $5.99 to $3.99 (it had been at $5.99 for a few months). I didn't think I'd get any interest in the first book based on the fact I didn't promote except for FB, Twitter, and various other social media sites. Not much, I can tell you. 

My book is now sitting at one of the highest paid positions on the charts since first release... it's the highest it's been in months. Now, Courtney made the suggestion that if your book tends to do well on a free day, then you're more likely to see good results from setting your first book permafree eventually. While the free run didn't do that well, the paid sales afterwards have pushed it up the charts. Nothing to boast about, but certainly more movement than I've seen in a while. It had reached about the 400,000 mark in terms of ranking a month ago. Now it's somewhere in the 15-20k region. 

So, I'm hopeful that by setting my first book to permafree once the third book is released, based on this experience, will yield better results than not setting it permafree at all. I think what I'd like to see is examples of the gruelling 0-1 phases, and techniques to move it up to phase 2, you know, to keep us all focused on what we can do, and not the variables involved that are due to luck. 

Cheers. 

Edit: I can see now that others have made suggestions to move from 0 - 1. Kudos


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Christa Wick said:


> In case it hasn't been pointed out already, that cream always rises to the top is an insidious lie outside the dairy industry.


And as I occasionally feel compelled to note, there are other things that also rise to the top--and they are framed in porcelain.

To quote certain teenagers in the family, "It's not fair!!!"


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## Maria Romana (Jun 7, 2010)

rex kusler said:


> Some brilliant minds at work in this thread, and this post in particular is worth hanging on the wall. All of my favorite books have been top sellers that were flawed, but I was drawn in anyway because I was entertained. I worked in Silicon Valley for 30 years and the people I knew who were successful weren't necessarily bright or creative. They were driven and ruthless. The meek, creative ones usually ended up being used.


Yes! This is absolutely my experience in the tech/business world as well. There are people many layers above me who I could out-think any day of the week in terms of technical know-how and creativity, but they are where they are, because they are better at marketing themselves than I am. They got to the top through schmoozing, flashy presentations, and knowing how to use people like me to make them look good. I don't begrudge them their success; I could be where they are, if it was what I really wanted, and I was willing to do what they do to get there, but it's not, and I'm not.

How does this fit into the discussion? As stated upthread, the cream does NOT always rise to the top, not on its own anyway. The greatest books in the world may very well never be found, no matter how freakin' perfect or wonderful anyone thinks they are. Other books, of arguably lower quality, will rise, because their authors/publishers/fans will do whatever is needed to get them noticed. So fine, we can pour our hearts and souls into writing the best possible books we can, but we'd better preserve a little energy for marketing, or we might as pour the whole bottle down the drain.


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## Guest (Jan 27, 2014)

So I guess it's a sprint now and not a marathon? Is that the new KBoards mantra?


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Joe Vasicek said:


> So I guess it's a sprint now and not a marathon? Is that the new KBoards mantra?


I think it's more "if you want to place well in the marathon, you need to keep running and pace yourself so you end up where you want to be" more than a "sprint" thing. Sure, you can mosey, but don't then get mad at all the people running past you and try to tell them they are doing it wrong.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

Joe Vasicek said:


> So I guess it's a sprint now and not a marathon? Is that the new KBoards mantra?


To each his or her own. I, myself, have neither the patience nor the finances to labor in obscurity, wishing and hoping that maybe lightning will strike and my books will just magically rise to the top on their own.

In this world, you make your own luck. Writing book after book without promotion won't get you anywhere. Unless lightning happens to strike. I mean, it happens. There are people on this board who have apparently sold a buttload without doing a darn thing, but they are the outliers, and I am not going to count on my being an outlier as well.

So, yeah, I'm trying to sprint. Who really wants to run a marathon? I mean, really. Instant gratification and all of that.


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## ElleChambers (Nov 5, 2013)

anniejocoby said:


> In this world, you make your own luck. Writing book after book without promotion won't get you anywhere. Unless lightning happens to strike. I mean, it happens. There are people on this board who have apparently sold a buttload without doing a darn thing, but they are the outliers, *and I am not going to count on my being an outlier as well. *


This is true. The bolded part is exactly why I decided to start promoting my work this year. The wait and see approach just isn't that effective - at all. At least not for the kind of stuff I write.


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## Guest (Jan 27, 2014)

Doomed Muse said:


> I think it's more "if you want to place well in the marathon, you need to keep running and pace yourself so you end up where you want to be" more than a "sprint" thing. Sure, you can mosey, but don't then get mad at all the people running past you and try to tell them they are doing it wrong.


I totally agree. And perhaps I'm mistaken, but what I'm hearing in so many words is "the only way to make sure that your books will do well is to market the hell out of them with short term promotional tactics." What about striving to improve your craft and write better books? I always thought that was what made it a marathon in the first place, since that's the hardest part. But if anything will sell as long as you have enough marketing savvy, then gosh, maybe working on my craft is a waste of time. 



anniejocoby said:


> To each his or her own. I, myself, have neither the patience nor the finances to labor in obscurity, wishing and hoping that maybe lightning will strike and my books will just magically rise to the top on their own.


I hardly think that treating a writing career like a marathon is "wishing and hoping that maybe lightning will strike." In fact, it's the exact opposite. I've written stuff that's good, and I've written stuff that's not so good. I don't expect any of it to "magically rise to the top on their own," so I focus on writing the next one instead, and strive to make it not only a good book, but a great book. My belief that greatness gives a book wings of its own is an acknowledgment that I should work on the hard stuff, like improving my craft, before I work on the quick and dirty stuff like promotional tactics. Which one is more like waiting for lightning to strike--your "instant gratification" approach or mine?


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

I think you can focus on and strive to make each book the best book you've written so far AND still do marketing.  A great book + marketing will do better than a weak book + marketing, and a great book with marketing behind it will probably do better than just a great book all by itself.

There is no either/or here, that I can see.


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Joe Vasicek said:


> And perhaps I'm mistaken, but what I'm hearing in so many words is "the only way to make sure that your books will do well is to market the hell out of them with short term promotional tactics."


As a self-pubbed author, I have two distinct roles. (Arguably more, but these are the two that impact this discussion.) The first is a writer--that's the one where I focus on mastering and continually better my craft. I'm diligent about that and I believe most writers on KB are as well. We want to do the thing right or we wouldn't be here.
The second role is publisher--that's where I focus on marketability, of which discoverability is a major aspect. You are suggesting that they are mutually exclusive. Or at least, you're accusing many of those in these types of discussions as only caring about the latter. That's a huge leap, and I don't believe it's true. It's just that we're talking about one role more than the other.


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## Guest (Jan 27, 2014)

Doomed Muse said:


> I think you can focus on and strive to make each book the best book you've written so far AND still do marketing. A great book + marketing will do better than a weak book + marketing, and a great book with marketing behind it will probably do better than just a great book all by itself.
> 
> There is no either/or here, that I can see.


Definitely. Totally agree.


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## Jay Allan (Aug 20, 2012)

Joe Vasicek said:


> So I guess it's a sprint now and not a marathon? Is that the new KBoards mantra?


That's a bit of a meaningless cliché, isn't it? A sprint is SUPPOSED to be short; a marathon is SUPPOSED to be long.

Building an audience for your book isn't comparable. In many cases it could take quite a while, but why would anyone ever want it to take longer if there were strategies available to do it more quickly?


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## sarracannon (Apr 19, 2011)

This is a great post, Courtney. I'd love to see a post on what your advice would be for each phase.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

sarracannon said:


> This is a great post, Courtney. I'd love to see a post on what your advice would be for each phase.


I second this, though I know it's a lot to ask


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## S.K. Falls (Jun 17, 2013)

Doomed Muse said:


> I second this, though I know it's a lot to ask


Ooh, thirded! I'll even feed you grapes and brush your hair while you write it. (Or is that just creepy?)


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## jaredspub (Jan 28, 2014)

Awesome stuff! I would go permafree with the first book in the series and only when you have at least 3 books. Then submit your free book to sites like these: http://www.trainingauthors.com/47-places-to-submit-your-free-kdp-promotion-for-your-kindle-ebook/


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

jaredspub said:


> Awesome stuff! I would go permafree with the first book in the series and only when you have at least 3 books. Then submit your free book to sites like these: http://www.trainingauthors.com/47-places-to-submit-your-free-kdp-promotion-for-your-kindle-ebook/


The 10,000 guaranteed download guys strike again.


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## Eva Lefoy (Jan 25, 2014)

Right now, I feel like my level of discoverability is on par with the guy holding the please help sign outside Albertsons.

Literally.

Eva


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## Eva Lefoy (Jan 25, 2014)

I may have to take extreme measures to fix this - such as writing mm tentacle sex! 

don't judge!

Eva


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## maggie2 (Feb 26, 2012)

brendajcarlton said:


> What a great post. You laid out in much better detail a vague sense I've been getting that all the big sellers on the board's stories all boil down to "Somehow, I don't know how exactly, I got a small flame and this is how I built it up into a big bonfire." That's all great information but it doesn't help you get the first little flame. I understand that writing more books is laying more kindling, so the fire will be bigger if it eventually comes, but personally, I have to fight the part of me that says, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."


I agree with this quote. What I want to know is how do you light the fire if you don't use permafree? What methods work to get you started in phase 1?
Marg


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## kyokominamino (Jan 23, 2014)

Eva Lefoy said:


> Right now, I feel like my level of discoverability is on par with the guy holding the please help sign outside Albertsons.
> 
> Literally.
> 
> Eva


I know that feel, bro. *Mockingjay salute*


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

maggie2 said:


> I agree with this quote. What I want to know is how do you light the fire if you don't use permafree? What methods work to get you started in phase 1?
> Marg


Personally, I think Select is still a great way to escape that first level. I know it doesn't have the sales impact it used to, but if you can get the reviews you need to qualify for BB, or ENT, or Bookblast, or KBT, you can put together a big free run. That will lead to more reviews (at least it has for me) more FB followers (ditto) and more blog traffic (yep.)

Without Select free days I wouldn't have the modest platform I have now. With Select, I can run one or two free runs every 90 days and still make a goodly amount on selling the title the other 85 days. This strategy is primarily responsible for getting me 1650 FB followers and over 600 Amazon reviews in less than 18 months. Without doing a major promotion, I still sell 500-600 titles every month, which to me means I've gotten out of that first category. I did it all with Select.

I know that the current wisdom is that Select is useless, but it isn't to me.


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## AmsterdamAssassin (Oct 21, 2011)

モスラ said:


> According to the great Ed Robertson, something like 20-25% of the entire Kindle store on .com has no sales rank, and thus has NEVER SOLD A SINGLE COPY. You could have written the next Twilight Fifty Shades of Grey The Hunger Games, but if no one ever reads it...
> 
> Anyway, I wouldn't take that whole "cream rises to the top" as an axiom if I were you. Taste is awfully subjective, and one person's cream is another person's crap. But yes, spending your time working on craft is always a good idea.


Cream rises to the top, but shit floats too.


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## AmsterdamAssassin (Oct 21, 2011)

KJCOLT said:


> I'm still in phase 0-1, and I've been working on my fantasy series for a while now, probably a year and a bit. I'm about to finish my third book and I was really counting on Permafree to help give me a visibility boost. So, when I read this post my stomach kind of sunk, because I realised that I might need to do more work than just set the first free once the third book is out.


KJ, you might be interested to know that Concealed Power is being screened to be reviewed on The Source, an initiative started on GoodReads to make a website for book recommendations.


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## AmsterdamAssassin (Oct 21, 2011)

KJCOLT said:


> Seriously?
> 
> Where do I find this information?


I'm on my iPad, so my linking is difficult. Go to Goodreads and my profile, Martyn V. Halm. If you scroll down to the updates, you can see I responded to threads in the group THE SOURCE. I think your novel is still in the Screening thread, awaiting five approvals by the screening commitee. If it gets five approvals, the book is moved to the Review thread, where reviewers can offer to review the book. Reviews will be posted on the website that's now under development.


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

maggie2 said:


> I agree with this quote. What I want to know is how do you light the fire if you don't use permafree? What methods work to get you started in phase 1?
> Marg


I'm really interested to hear Courtney's take on it as well, but FYI, Goodreads worked spectacularly well for me.


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## CEMartin2 (May 26, 2012)

(Somehow missed this thread in January)

For me the jump to phase 2 was easy: permafree book 1 and bookbub promo.i went from under a hundred sales a month to several hundred a month. Now, two months later there's a slow ebb in sales and I can't think of anything to hit my target goal of 1000 sales a month--other than stuff I tried before that didn't work or another bookbub. For me, proceeding further is going to be harder.


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

CEMartin2 said:


> (Somehow missed this thread in January)
> 
> For me the jump to phase 2 was easy: permafree book 1 and bookbub promo.i went from under a hundred sales a month to several hundred a month. Now, two months later there's a slow ebb in sales and I can't think of anything to hit my target goal of 1000 sales a month--other than stuff I tried before that didn't work or another bookbub. For me, proceeding further is going to be harder.


Sometimes I think we try to jump too quickly from one phase to another. I know that's been true of myself.

Now, I'm looking at it as more of a slow build. I keep writing, keep my eyes open for opportunities to advance and wait. I have a goal to be making an income equal to my current day job in five years. I've still got three and a half years to go, so I'm not panicking yet.


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## hardnutt (Nov 19, 2010)

Very helpful post, Courtney. Thank you. Bookmarked! Now I'll be able to check where I'm at whenever I want. 

I've also been considering putting my first out as permafree. But, before I do that, I'm going through to make sure I have no typos (this was one of the earliest of my books that I formatted and I need to be sure I've got everything just so). I also need to check my back-matter and make sure it's not too lengthy. The blurb probably needs a bit of attention, too... 

Not entirely sure about the cover either. Oh, God!


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Just had another read-through of this thread and find it just as helpful as when it was going on in real time. I go back and read the Phases list and it helps me be too discouraged.


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## Gennita Low (Dec 13, 2012)

Courtney,

I think you might have convinced me to try perma-free this year. Thanks for this post.


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

Endi Webb said:


> It's true. I read pretty much all your comments.


Just started reading this thread, but, yeah ditto. 
I opened this one up, b/c the OP hits the nail more often than misses it. And so far, everyone who's posted has added to the convo.

And, not for nothing, I think we're all a tad OCD. I mean... WTF is a rewrite if not that?

With the comments so far (and I'm only on pg 2) this wins thread of the month.
"But which month, Des?"
Uhhh... this one? LOL


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## valeriec80 (Feb 24, 2011)

SM Reine said:


> Also, in what I expect would have been phase 2 for me, there weren't stable sales of hundreds to thousands a month without ads. It was like "run an ad = peak" (hundreds or thousands of sales that month), and "time between ads = troughs" (weep-worthy sales that month). I didn't drag myself into vaguely stable sales until what looked more like phase 3.


This is heartening. Thanks for sharing.


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## AmsterdamAssassin (Oct 21, 2011)

Donna White Glaser said:


> Just had another read-through of this thread and find it just as helpful as when it was going on in real time. I go back and read the Phases list and it helps me be too discouraged.


Do you mean 'NOT to be too discouraged'?


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## Guest (Mar 16, 2014)

I agree with the exception of one thing. If your book isn't noticed, simply putting another out likely won't help. You can put out 1000 books and it won't help. Time and time again I've noticed writers coming out of nowhere, doing very well, and all with one thing in common. GREAT COVERS! I'm a prime example. My first book sold less than 20 copies in nine months. I changed the cover and BAM!. Naturally, the story has to be good too. But people will never know one way of another unless they pick it up.


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## Chris Northern (Jan 20, 2011)

valeriec80 said:


> Not to highjack the thread with my own BS, but I guess I'll point out (as succinctly as I can) that I have pure-O OCD, which is a kind of OCD in which I become fixated on certain thoughts. It's really insidious because the thoughts present themselves as very rational, and I'll very much think that they're "real" concerns that I should be worrying about. Anyway, my sales are not that bad. It's only that somehow I got myself ruminating on this idea that if I wasn't making five figures a month, I was a failure. And so I spent like six months of my life trying to figure out what I was doing *wrong,* since I was such crap. Sounds silly to type it, but I swear to God I *believed* that until going through all my big, public breakdowns, which made me realize how I was feeling wasn't *normal.* Anyway, I have been realizing lately how freaking lucky and how not-a-failure I am. So... sorry. I, um, often get more worried about things than is warranted, but I'm working on it, and I'm in a better place right now. /end highjack


I'm really glad you said this. Sums up exactly how I feel most of the time. Especially this bit:- if I wasn't making five figures a month, I was a failure. And so I spent like six months of my life trying to figure out what I was doing *wrong,* since I was such crap.

I think I've been wasting my time working on new things, new ideas, better stuff, better stories, better writing, more original, just get good at this dammit! Lol. Getting mad at myself and pushing myself to do new better work... when what I should have been doing is _supporting the series that is actually selling!_

No wonder sales continue drifting down to the ticking-over level, no wonder no one is buying the other stuff - what readers want (my readers, I mean, and so my potential readers when tehy stumble across the work) is more of what I _was_ writing. Just because it was never selling thousands a month (peaked at about a thousand) I thought I was rubbish and needed to... never mind.

I'm really saying this now to stop someone else making the same mistake, maybe for the reasons that prompted me to say this at all (see the quote above). If you have something that's selling 'just okay' and some readers - doesn't matter how many - are buying the next book in the series and looking forward to the next book in the series and saying so! Then Write The Next Book, okay?!

So yes, back to the top of the thread... All that stuff is true.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Just bumping this thread because we have a new crop of writers who could use this awesome perspective on things. Thanks, Courtney, for posting this in the first place. You are generous and gracious, and it is appreciated.


And I totally agree, Chris: support the series that is selling!


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## 60169 (May 18, 2012)

Good thinking, Cherise. I think this is my all-time favorite post on Kboards.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

It's up there in my list of favorite posts, too. This is the part that I want to emphasize. The numbers have grown since Courtney was a newbie, so I have adjusted them a bit, either with line-outs or with parentheticals:



Courtney Milan said:


> And this is one of the things that I think needs to be talked about in terms of discoverability. It's much, much harder work to go from being five-sales-a-month-Joe to one-hundred-sales-a-month-Joe than it is to go from being one-hundred-sales-a-month Joe to two-thousand-sales-a-month Joe.
> 
> Discoverability has phases. Acting like "discoverability" means one thing to all people is wrong.
> 
> ...


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

The initial post on this thread is fantastic. Thanks for posting it, Courtney. My problem is that I can't decide which phase I am. I'd go with phase 1 if I looked at my book sales, but I sound like phase 2 if you look at the 5 million reads I have on Wattpad. I think I'm an anomaly. The only thing I know for certain is that a free book did nothing for me. It gets a lot of downloads, but I don't see any income-changing events happening. 

I'm up for it if anyone fancies diagnosing what phase I am. I'll save you searching around for the answers about me:

I make $100 a month as an indie author with 14 books out.
I have 5 millions reads (about 100k readers and 8k fans) on Wattpad.
I got picked up by Harlequin last year for three books, so I think my indie books are of a decent enough standard.
You can see my covers in my signature here.
I write teen and new adult fiction (both mystery and speculative fiction).
I've done every kind of marketing in the universe except sending the books out for reviews because I didn't want to natter reviewers. They all sounded so busy when I checked their blogs.

I have no idea what phase I am.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

ClaireChilton said:


> The initial post on this thread is fantastic. Thanks for posting it, Courtney. My problem is that I can't decide which phase I am. I'd go with phase 1 if I looked at my book sales, but I sound like phase 2 if you look at the 5 million reads I have on Wattpad. I think I'm an anomaly. The only thing I know for certain is that a free book did nothing for me. It gets a lot of downloads, but I don't see any income-changing events happening.
> 
> I'm up for it if anyone fancies diagnosing what phase I am. I'll save you searching around for the answers about me:
> 
> ...


Sounds like phase 1.5 to me. 

Your covers say dark literary fiction to me, if that helps. I never would have guessed speculative fiction.


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

Cherise Kelley said:


> Sounds like phase 1.5 to me.
> 
> Your covers say dark literary fiction to me, if that helps. I never would have guessed speculative fiction.


I was coming up with 1.5 too lol. Maybe that's my problem. I might be attracting the wrong readers. I design my own covers, so I can refresh them. What says entertaining, popular fiction of the fantasy variety on a book cover? The books are all a bit romantic, a bit fantasy/paranormal and high-action, fast reads. I'd call them all entertainment rather than literary on any level. If the covers scream lit, then they probably aren't helping me reach phase 2.


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## NoCat (Aug 5, 2010)

Find covers in your genre and see what the people who sell are doing. What bestselling books are similar to yours?  Look at those covers and adjust if you want.


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## rosclarke (Jul 12, 2013)

ClaireChilton said:


> The initial post on this thread is fantastic. Thanks for posting it, Courtney. My problem is that I can't decide which phase I am. I'd go with phase 1 if I looked at my book sales, but I sound like phase 2 if you look at the 5 million reads I have on Wattpad. I think I'm an anomaly. The only thing I know for certain is that a free book did nothing for me. It gets a lot of downloads, but I don't see any income-changing events happening.
> 
> I'm up for it if anyone fancies diagnosing what phase I am. I'll save you searching around for the answers about me:
> 
> ...


The thing that stands out to me from that is that Wattpad reads/fans do not appear to translate into sales. What value do you see in using Wattpad?


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

rosclarke said:


> The thing that stands out to me from that is that Wattpad reads/fans do not appear to translate into sales. What value do you see in using Wattpad?


Well, I think the sales I get come from Wattpad readers. I also got a lot more people signing up for my newsletter. The fans leave reviews. I can ask them what they like and what they don't, so the reader input is enormously helpful. They do follow my books, so I'm connecting with people who 'may' grow up to become fans. If someone's mean to me, they kill them (I'm joking lol), but they are very supportive. Also, Wattpad provided me with the competition for Harlequin, and the fans were voting for my story, which got me into the finals. So they helped me win a book deal too, which I'm eternally grateful for. They're amazing when I run giveaways, and I get to enjoy having readers. It really is fun to see your readers react to your chapters, and to chat with them about it.

I think that the readers are too young to shop on Amazon. That's probably the only reason that they don't buy the books in a massive influx. It's one of the flaws of online shopping really. It doesn't cater to anyone who is under 18 years old. Sites like Wattpad do so well because it's the only way for younger readers to access books on their phones online. All of them use their phones, so it's a completely mobile market, but there is no way to monetize it. I think that Amazon are trying to access that market with KU a bit. But again, without a credit card, the younger readers won't get a chance to shop there.


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## CfaE (Jul 25, 2014)

ㅈㅈ said:


> Find covers in your genre and see what the people who sell are doing. What bestselling books are similar to yours? Look at those covers and adjust if you want.


That's what I did originally, but it seems to have given off the lit vibe.


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## C. Gockel (Jan 28, 2014)

To people wondering about the effectiveness of Wattpad for building sales, I would say I don't have direct experience there, but I do have experience with fanfiction.net. I wrote fanfic for 3 years before writing original fiction. It was a great testing ground for me. I learned a lot and met some great traditionally published authors (one of them award winning) who are still my betas. I also found about 100 fans who would read anything I wrote--whether it was Star Trek, Star Wars, Chronicles of Narnia, or Thor/Avengers. About 20 of those die hard fans also reliably reviewed my work. When I moved over to self-publishing they bought I Bring the Fire (and Murphy's Star) and they left me a lot more reviews than a lot of self-pubbers usually get. 

Fanfiction.net also gave me about 5,000 more people who weren't die hard fans but jumped on I Bring the Fire Part I when I made it free and eventually permafree ... and that got me more reviews ... which also got me a BookBub ad.

I still get readers from fanfiction.net. My stories there aren't the MOST popular, but they are popular with older readers of fanfic, who also tend to have credit cards and disposable income. If you're successfully self-publishing, I'm not sure what the effectiveness of Wattpad, AO3, or fanfiction.net are, they are probably more of a time/emotional drain than anything. But if you aren't so successful, I think they are great sandboxes to see what works for you as a writer.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

ClaireChilton said:


> The books are all a bit romantic, a bit fantasy/paranormal and high-action, fast reads. I'd call them all entertainment rather than literary on any level.


Those books are trending toward animated covers. Look at Deanna Chase and HP Mallory (who are both KB members).

http://www.amazon.com/Deanna-Chase/e/B005EJ9ECW/
http://www.amazon.com/H.P.-Mallory/e/B003VI5C60/


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## AngelaQuarles (Jun 22, 2014)

Had to look this up anyway, and thought I'd bump for any new writers who might not have seen it originally. One of my fave posts.


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## Marilyn Peake (Aug 8, 2011)

AngelaQuarles said:


> Had to look this up anyway, and thought I'd bump for any new writers who might not have seen it originally. One of my fave posts.


Thanks! I found this very informative and helpful.


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## 75845 (Jan 1, 1970)

Seeing as it's not yet 8am and I had cuppa soup rather than coffee I was being a bit dim and not noticed that this thread was 18 months old. But I'll say what I was going to say:

Great on Courtney to say what she said, but as someone who joined the board just after it was posted and hadn't seen it before I have to say that its not just new writers who need to see the OP but regular posters on kboards because Courtney's sage advice has largely gone unheeded. Courtney could write the same post today that most posts about discoverability on kboards treat it as if it is the same goal for every author. There are other topics for which this applies as well, such as those who scream blue murder if someone dares to quote Joe Konrath (or refer to the reason that people originally discovered Wool) and say that there is luck involved in discoverability. 

Kudos to Valerie for the even more obvious and even more ignored wisdom that most people will buy your book before reading it (KU/Scribd notwithstanding).

Finally as a former and still sometime philosopher I can't resist challenging the cream rises to the top trope, although as a literary type I admire anyone trying to produce cream. Bad news: cream can never be produced from ideas in your musal brain, but require a substance such as milk. In philosophy we have a trope that we use to criticise bad philosophical arguments called misplaced concreteness. This is where someone (often a top flight, best-selling philosopher) constructs an argument about their abstract notion as if it was a physical object. Sorry, darling, it's just an idea.

No doubt a mythbusters programme could prove that cream does not always rise to the top, but let's leave that aside. Cream has nothing to do with any thought, industry, or other non-creamy endeavor. It's cream. Stop arguing from misplaced dairyness. The cream rises to the top metaphor comes from an observable fact of nature, but the metaphor only works if you have otherwise proved that rising to the top is observable in your industry or non-industrial endeavor (i.e., the dairyness is not always misplaced). So cream rises to the top as a metaphor is misplaced in our industry unless and until you can prove that as an observable fact good writing always rises to the top of the selling charts. We know that that is not an observable truth as we've all downloaded something because it was riding high in the charts and discovered it to be the literary equivalent of sodium bicarbonate.

Conclusion: I should not write comments before having my morning coffee, so as that cream is useless to your argument, may I have it for my nice calming beverage?


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## chalice (Jan 5, 2013)

*You present some very interesting thoughts here Mercia McMahon.

Best Regards,
Shana Jahsinta Walters.*


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Re-bumping the thread for the later crowd.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

This one is always worth a re-read.


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

Rinelle Grey said:


> This one is always worth a re-read.


second this.


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## A.R. Williams (Jan 9, 2011)

Doing some re-reading of super old threads ...

**NOTE: This is from 2014**


BUMP!!!


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

My how time flies; I remember this thread well. And the truths of what Courtney pointed out in the OP about the phases still holds true. 
Despite algo-shifts by Zon, scammers and black hats, etc etc, long term success at Indie pubbing boils down to finding those people who would buy your work. 

This is as relevant today as it was back then.


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