Serializing My Stories

Relic Worlds is supposed to have the feel of serialized stories.  Its original influences, Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, were themselves inspired by serialized stories.  That format has come alive again on TV in the form of Netflix and Amazon series where episodes tend to end on a cliffhanger, or leaving the viewer begging to know what happens next.  This is the source of "binge watching".

I've therefore been wanting to do that with Relic Worlds for a while, but I finally got pushed into it when book 3 wasn't getting done in time, so I decided to release "part 1" in March, then parts 2 and 3 will come in 6 month increments.

From that, I got inspired to do the same thing with books 1 and 2.  Book 2 had had this problem on Amazon where the wrong file had been attached, so I needed to get the correct story out to people anyway, so it's perfect timing for me to do a type of re-release.  This gives it a chance to be presented in a format that's very appropriate for the type of story it is.

Also, being that there are six weeks until book 3, part 1 releases, it's also perfect timing for me to release one part of each of the first two books each week, because they're each in 3 parts.  This leaves a proverbial trail of breadcrumbs right up to the next book.

Each part is available for 99 cents, and the full books are available for 2.99 on Kindle.  The paperbacks are the same.  Book 3 will only release in paperback once the entire story is done.  I'm hoping to do it this way from now on.  We'll see how it works out.

Using Games to Promote my Books

I've noticed an interesting dynamic ever since I've been running a gaming channel; it's been easier for me to promote my games than it's been to promote my books.  I have often felt bad about this as books should be my higher priority.  That is my primary career after all.

However, I find that when I go to book sites on Facebook, Google +, forums and other locations, it tends to be "beggars begging from beggars."  What I mean by that is it's writers and self-publishers trying only to promote their books.  Everyone seems to be a promoter and no one seems to be the audience.

Writers are, of course, readers as well, and that's the presumption.  But it comes across as a sea of everyone doing what you're doing, and it's hard to stand out.

What has been a bit more successful for me, however, is when I do a video about an RPG game that we've played, and I post it on Youtube, then Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.  Suddenly all the gamers get sucked into the story and want to see more.  It's unique and interesting, and I don't look quite so desperate to sell something.  When I finally come around to telling everyone, hey, by the way, I have a book, they're much more receptive.  They haven't been bombarded with 30 other books in the past hour.

For instance, I have a show called RPG Storytime where I take the story from an RPG story and I tell it in a video with miniatures using narration, sound effects, etc. to tell the tale.  Other people who play that game watch the show, ostensibly get interested in my writing, and hopefully they'll check out my original works.  This is also beneficial because the games are often from worlds like Star Wars, so I can interest people who are fans of that, even if they're not gamers.  You can click below to see some of these webisodes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVxssH4-QqA&list=PLJ55yyr7uUQAAXRGrng3rX3fRsigvVavS

This would most likely be successful in other types of sites other than gaming as the primary ingredient here is the fact that it's away from the crowd of other authors hawking their wares.  However, I like that community partly because it's something I really enjoy, and it's also a very interactive medium since everyone is looking to play with one another.

#writing #gaming #starwars

My Book Reviews

            When I tried to get my books reviewed, some of the first places I thought to go to were blogs and Youtube book reviewers.  They were the logical choice considering the fact that they were themselves self-publishers.  I was shocked and amazed at how many of them refused to review self-published materials, never recognizing their own hypocrisy.

            I’m a believer in putting your effort where your mouth is, so I did a Youtube book review show where I only reviewed independently published books.  It was the only one on Youtube of its kind.  I was proud of it, and I mixed it with doing my weight loss as I would read the books while out on walks, and check my weight after doing the reviews.

            What was frustrating was that the views never got to be very high.  I would get the people whose books I was reviewing, some of their readers and friends, then I would get completely different viewers the next week.  None of them were watching other reviews, supporting other independently published authors.

            It’s frustrating seeing this sort of every man and woman for him and her self.  This whole industry is very difficult already, and we’re competing with large corporations that have many employees.  The best thing we can do for ourselves is to band together and help each other.

            I want to go back to reviewing these books.  I feel strongly about independent publishing, and I want to help others as I want to be helped as well.  But I’ve been taking a break from it for now as the effort was going to waste while I was ignoring my own projects.  Hopefully that will change.

Using a Mailing List

            As time has gone by I’ve been hearing more and more how important a mailing list is.  I disregarded its importance as I felt that emailing people was more of a nuisance to both me and the people I’d be emailing, and I didn’t see how it would be effective.  I figured that if someone was interested enough to give me their email address, they were already looking at my work, and they didn’t need me to bother them with reminders about it.

            However, I heard about mailing lists being important enough that I finally looked into it, and I began to see the value.  First, it’s really only helpful if you are regularly coming out with material.  So if you have a mailing list for you as a writer, then you need to regularly be coming out with books or other written materials.  If the mailing list is about a series, then you need to be regularly coming out with written materials for that series.

            The problem with the former is that your list will likely be made up of people who became interested in your writing because of one specific book.  So you’re going to need to stay within that genre in order to keep their interest.  If your newsletters become about a subject they’re not interested in, they’ll unsubscribe, even if you’re just taking a short break from that type of writing.

            So it’s best to focus on a particular series and collect names and addresses of people who want to follow along.  For me, that’s been Relic Worlds because not only is it a series, but it’s a series with a lot of ancillary elements.  There are short stories, games, a comic book, etc.  There’s something to talk about every month, and more material to release, so the newsletters have material and aren’t just empty ramblings of me saying, “something more is coming sometime, I promise!”

            I’ve found that there are two methods to build the mailing list that work the best, conventions and giveaways.  At conventions, you’re trying to get people to look at your books, but they’re not sure whether they’re ready to commit to buying or even reading them yet.  So a mailing list is a good way to get a taste without a commitment.  It’s also a way to remind them that you exist, as opposed to a flyer which will likely get thrown away once they’re home, no matter how interested they are in your product.

            Giveaways are the way to do it from home.  You need to get a prize people will want, and it’s a great idea to get something that matches what you’re selling.  In my case, I gave away a Kindle Fire and I included one of the Relic Worlds books.  That way they not only get a prize they want, they also have a means for which to read my books, and a starter.  But the real prize for me was all the email addresses that people had to give in order to enter the raffle.

            Now, I don’t want lists of people who won’t be interested in my series.  That wastes everyone’s time.  Even once I have their email addresses, when I send them a newsletter, they’ll just unsubscribe because they’re not interested.  Or, worse yet, they won’t unsubscribe and I’ll continue to send them information that’s useless to both them and me.  So I promote it on sites where I think my readership will go, and I make sure keywords are always included that have scifi, adventure, books, etc.

            I use Shortstack as my sweepstakes provider.  They help collect all the email addresses, and provide a means by which to make a good looking sweepstakes page.  I might switch this out as I wasn’t extremely impressed with their service considering the cost.  But it wasn’t bad.  They’re at: http://www.shortstack.com/

            I use Mailchimp to create and send the newsletters.  They’ve been fantastic.  They’re at: http://mailchimp.com/

Book Talks

            I’ll be traveling around the Midwest and Texas in October giving talks at Rotary clubs and libraries.  I’d put the tour list here, but it’s long, and would take a lot of time for me to look up all the addresses and/or contact information, and no one goes to these events based on this blog, so I’m not going to take the time to list them now.

            Instead I’m going to talk about why I go to these clubs and give these talks.  I have found Rotary clubs, and groups like it, to be an invaluable tool for independent non-fiction promotion.  The organizers of these clubs need to find a new speaker every single week, and they’re trying to find subjects interesting enough to keep their members coming back.  Having a true story to tell is a blessing for them, as long as it’s an interesting one.  While I struggled for years to get bookstores to let me do signings, clubs that need regular speakers have been more than willing to accept me.  And some have even contacted me and asked me to come to their organization to speak, saving me the time of having to go to them.

            I haven’t been charging for these events as I want to get into as many as possible.  I make money by selling copies of my books at them, and sometimes I make a couple hundred at a single event.  It’s not enough to live on as the work required to set it up and to travel there winds up being inefficient.  However, it spreads the word of the book and of me as an author.  I often make friends and contacts who later join me on social media, and they see what else I’m writing.  Like most things in independent publishing, it pays to have a number of titles so each individual event doesn’t wind up being your only trick.

            I approach these organizations by looking them up, finding out who would be in charge of booking guests, (if I can’t find that, I just find the president or whomever is in charge,) and I email them.  I tell them what the story is and I provide a link to the web page where the information is listed.  I also mention anything that is sellable about the story.  (In the case of Two Gun Hart I tell them that it’s the first time a lot of information about the Capones has ever been revealed.)  And I make sure to mention anything that’s relevant to their area, as sometimes clubs prefer stories with a local connection.  (Oddly enough, most of the ones in Iowa wouldn’t have me as a guest unless I could show a local connection.)

            This doesn’t work so well when it comes to fiction because typically the best you can do is say you have a story you’ve made up.  The problem is, everyone has a story they’ve made up, and they don’t know why yours is extra special.  And besides, people at events like these usually want to hear about something that’s true.  They’re fascinated by true stories and will gladly invite authors with great true stories to their events.

People Connect More to Video Than to Words

            It’s a painful thing to admit as a book writer, but there’s a reason why movies and television are more popular storytelling formats than any type of written material.  The reason is simply because visual mediums appeal to multiple senses; primarily sight and sound.  They more easily and effectively manipulate our emotions.  And, perhaps most importantly, they can be enjoyed in groups.  While reading a book or a short story is an intimate moment between reader and writer, visual productions can bring together multiple audience members at the same time and cause them to all feel the same thing at the same moment.

            An example of this is John Green of the Vlog Brothers on Youtube.  He speaks poetically and quite well about how reading is a shared experience between author and reader.  However, even he has to admit that his fame came not through his books, but through his program with his brother.  It was once the audience could see him, hear him, and get a sense of his feelings through his expressions that they connected with him, and wanted to know more about what he was writing.

            Books that have been made into movies always do better than before they were put on film.  Even though the movies ruin the endings and every secret in these books, people become curious about what’s in the book in addition to the film.  Not only is there a lot of free advertising, but once people have heard voices of the characters, even though it’s stolen away their ability to make their own voices, more readers flock to these books because they’ve had a more visceral connection.

            I’ve embraced this fact and started a few Youtube channels of my own.  They have, regrettably, been as unsuccessful as my writing and I struggle to get views.  But I do find it easier to get people to take a chance with one of my videos than it is to get people to take a chance on my writing.  Even trying to get people to read a free short story is a daunting task.

            I’ve become convinced that a healthy mix of these two mediums is the best chance for success.  The difficulty is in juggling my time with these two art forms.

Planning for Book Conventions

I’ve been talking recently about what worked and what didn’t when I released book 2 of the Relic Worlds series; and more importantly, what I learned.  In one weekend I released book 2, presented the Relic Worlds series at Wondercon, and gave away book 1 in a KDP Select free promotion.  The result was not a lot of immediate sales, but a lot of people who are now following the series.

As a result, I’ve begun to plan for more online promotions on Facebook and Twitter, I’m doing a newsletter campaign on Mail Chimp, and I’ll be doing another free book promotion in conjunction with the second book having a countdown deal.  These are all the online plans, and the other half of the equation is networking in person.  This is best accomplished by going to conventions, so I’ve made a list of the conventions I plan to go to.

I was told that Texans will buy anything.  In fact, I was told that Dallas has the best sales rate of any comic book/sci fi and fantasy convention in the country.  Denver is apparently a close second.  I’ve decided to make my trips to these conventions coincide with trips my girlfriend and I want to take, and since we want to see Austin, I’ve decided my next convention will be Alamo City, which takes place in San Antonio, (just an hour’s drive from Austin.)  San Antonio supposed to be a pretty fascinating city itself, so I’m looking forward to that one.

I plan to keep Wondercon as sort of my “home base” if you will, building a regular following there while I travel to other places just once each to build my following.  I also want to attend Emerald City, which is in Seattle, and Chicago’s C2E2 Pop Culture convention.  Unfortunately, both of those are right around Wondercon, and that might be too much intensity in too short a time, (not to mention the expense.)  So I might only do one of those two.  Finally, I want to do New York Comic Con, though that might be way too expensive.  However, it’s the largest Comic Book convention, even larger than San Diego Comic Con, so it might be worth it.  Or it might just swallow a small project like mine up whole.  Maybe I should do that one a little further down the line.

I’m also looking at Sac Con, which is in Sacramento, and Nerd Con in San Diego, since they’d be close.  I did Loscon, and they want me back, but SO FEW of the people at that convention go into the dealer’s room that it’s not really worth it.

I’ll be looking at more conventions, and I’ll be going to as many as I can afford.