The Secret to Independent/Self-Publishing? - Series! (Part 1)

When I started doing independent publishing, I wrote nonfiction books and single, one-off novels.  While I’m proud of these works, and the non-fictions in particular have been met with rave reviews, I’ve learned that these are precisely the sorts of books that are the hardest sells for independent authors and publishers.  What works, in short, are series for niche markets.

You see, major publishers can sell one-off books more effectively because they have a larger marketing budget, and they’re well established in the industry.  They have connections and inroads into distribution channels that give them a virtual monopoly in certain venues.  This is especially prevalent in pre-sales where they are able to get reviewed by major publications that have large subscriber bases and loyal viewers, readers, and followers.  These connections would take individual publishers and authors years to build, if they can build them at all.  Additionally, traditional publishers have large teams of people dedicated only to publishing without the distraction of writing.

Independent authors are trying to get the attention of news reporters, bloggers, show hosts, etc. while continuing to write another book and often while doing a day job as well.  And when they finally break through those barriers and get some coverage, all that effort is rewarded once, and then it’s back to the drawing board for the next story.  Sometimes people who bought one of your books will remember you for the next one.  And Amazon has been great about telling people who buy one book that there’s another book by the same author.  But this all has limited success, especially when your books are not of the same subject.

However, social media gives the author complete control over their promotions.  No longer are you dependent upon news sources to see some value in your product.  You can post about your newest creations online.  The problem with this is two-fold.  First, people don’t like to be sold to while you are on social media.  So you can’t just go on and start saying you have a book to sell.  You have to become a part of the community; like and comment on things other people are posting.  After a while, you can bring up your own book, and if you did it right, you’ll get some sales.  But then that’s it.  You’ve done what you can for that book.  And now you belong to a group you only joined because you wanted to do that one thing.

In my case, I did have three non-fiction books that were all true crime related, so I was able to be a part of the true crime community and talk about each book as it came out.  But this was limited because I couldn’t post too much about each book without giving their content away.  And, to be honest, I’ve never had that big of an interest in the whole world of true crime.  I just happened to have three stories I’m fascinated by that happen to be defined as true crime.  My posts probably reflected the fact that I just wasn’t that interested in the general subject matter.

Also, the only conventions I could take these books to were general book conventions.  There are no true crime conventions, (at least I hope there aren’t,) so I was limited to what I could do online to try to generate interest in these books.

Fiction series for a niche market, however, that’s a different story; one I will get to in my upcoming post next week…

My First Booth at Wondercon

I ran my first booth ever at Wondercon this weekend, and I learned quite a bit.

First I must explain that I have been studying this for quite a while; how to best use a convention to sell my products.  I first went to Comic Con in 2007 and have been trying to utilize that convention and others in the best way possible.  Mostly, I tried to do it on the cheap, handing out flyers in the front, and running events that didn't involve getting a table myself.  One example was the treasure hunt I ran, where I gave out flyers full of clues that led attendees to several booths until they got to the last one where they got a prize relating to my series.  (The flyer, of course, also said the name of the series on it.)

All of these attempts failed to have much of an impact.  The treasure hunt, first of all, was too difficult to accomplish, and few people got to the end.  But the biggest problem was that I was, ultimately, outside of the convention.  To really be taken seriously, I had to go all the way and get a booth.  So that is a must.

I became impressed with Wondercon when it first moved to Anaheim.  The first year was rough; but overall it had the feel of a more independent minded convention that remembered its sci fi and fantasy roots.  It wasn't quite so owned by the corporations.  I knew that when I got a booth, it would be here.

My booth was way in the back, which made it easy to load, but harder for attendees to find.  Luckily, it was right next to the food court, so a lot of people saw it during lunch.

I ran the treasure hunt again, but this time it was simple to do.  And at the end, people who wanted to claim their prize had to give their name and email address to enter the drawing.  The grand prize was a trip to Disneyland, so there were a lot of people who wanted to do it.  This left me with an extended email list.  However, it was not as long as it could have been since people had to do the treasure hunt first, and some didn't want to bother.

The table was filled with the flyers on the right, the books in the middle, and a large volcano model I made on the left.  The Relic Worlds sign hung from the table int he front, and vertical signs of the two books hung behind me.  I found this to be a really good layout, though I might have overdone it on the number of different flyers and different books.  What I really needed was a flyer with the treasure hunt, a flyer with the books, and a flyer with a free short story.  Maybe adding the bookmark was a good idea as well, because it was easy to get people to take a bookmark after they had bought other books.

The way the days worked seems to be the same for every convention.  Friday is the day when people trickle in and look at what there is to offer.  It's best to give them previews of what I have as well as get them on the treasure hunts.  At night there was gaming in a different building.  I thought this would be super important as it would be a whole new audience that extended into the evening.  However, this year the gaming area was far away from the convention center, so hardly anyone was there.  Also, people tend to break off into cliques at these gaming events, so its effectiveness was limited.

Saturday was the big day.  It was the day to push both the free fliers and the books, as well as attract everyone with the volcano, and put on a game that utilized the volcano.  This was more effective than the night gaming as it was in full view of other attendees, who looked on at the setup with amazement.  (I spend hundreds of dollars making it.)  I did find, though, that it would be better to have a separate person run the game, as I needed to be at the booth.  I also had two models dressed as a couple of the characters posing for the cameras out front where the cosplayers hang out, and give out flyers.  This was one of the best and most effective things to do as we got TONS of people photographing them along with the books.  I could not have arranged this, however, if I hadn't had two wonderful volunteers at the booth selling books while I was dealing with the models.

Sunday is known as the dead day.  However, it's also the day people are usually more apt to buy.  They've spent the last couple days looking over everything, and on the last day they go through buying what they've decided to get.  It's also the best day to network with other booths as they're less busy.

In the end, I learned that conventions are essentially the second half of the equation to sell books.  The other half is online, which I'll get to in another post.  Conventions are where you spread the word in person.  You can't really expect to make any money at them; you're going to spend more money than you make creating an effective platform.  However, this platform should be used to create something that the attendees go back and tell others about.  The experience should be something they want to photograph either at your booth, or in the cosplay area.  (I had both with the volcano at the booth and the two models in the cosplay area.)  It's also a great way to get people to learn about your website and any deals you have going, such as a free book deal or a sale.

But what it's best for is what I've recently learned is the most important thing in independent book selling: building the email list.  I never thought of this as such an important step, but it is.  Having a website and Facebook page is important for people to go see, but the general public will forget about you unless you actively remind them of your existence, and sending short stories and/or updates is the best way to do it.  So an email list is what you need.  And there's no better way to build this than at a convention.  When people meet you face to face, they get interested in what you're doing.  They're usually not ready to buy anything because they want to keep checking you out.  So they're willing to give you their email address for you to tell them.  I made the mistake of tying it to the treasure hunt.  While the hunt was fun and unique and best of all, made me stand out, it limited the number of people who signed up on the list; and many who would want to hear more later on never came back.

So the bottom line is it's best to find a way to have the attendees join your mailing list by doing something there at the booth that's fun and memorable, but they need to give you their name and email to do it.

Relic Worlds Book 1 is Now on Audible as an Audiobook

Relic Worlds, Book 1: Lancaster James and the Search for the Promised World, is now an audiobook available on Audible.  If you join audible, you can get the book for free!  The audio was done by a wonderful actor named Jon Ryan, who added music and some sound effects to give it the proper feeling.  You can find it at:

http://www.amazon.com/Relic-Worlds-Lancaster-Search-Promised/dp/B01AIYMH6C/ref=sr_1_1_twi_audd_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1453169725&sr=8-1&keywords=Relic+Worlds

Why Can't Steven Avery of Making a Murderer Get a New Trial?

Like so many people I watched in horror as the events of Making a Murderer unfold.  The police corruption is undeniable.  The fact that they planted evidence is pretty obvious, and their bully tactics to lead to a confession are undeniable.  I’m not 100% certain of Steven Avery’s guilt or innocence as I did not see the whole trial, but the guilt of the police in shoddy, unethical, and illegal police work is undeniable.

The reaction of the public has been the obvious response, to petition for a new trial, and to try to convince the federal government to step in.  Unfortunately, both are futile gestures.  Murder is a state crime, not a federal one, so neither the president, nor any federal representative, can step in.  Legally, it is a matter for the state to handle, and we’ve already seen that the powers that be in Wisconsin don’t want to do anything about it.

As for a new trial, that can only happen if new evidence is brought forward.  It doesn’t matter how much one proves that their trial was tarnished, they cannot receive a new one.  One can bring charges against the people who fixed the trial, thus placing more people in jail, but the person whose life was ruined by the unfair trial remains in prison.  This is one of the many reasons that our prisons are overcrowded.

If there’s one thing we should be learning from this documentary it’s that the legal system is completely messed up.  It protects rules more than it does the public.  Even in the face of overwhelming proof that a wrong has been done to someone, and continues to be done to them, the rules are in place to protect the system rather than the individual.

In my book Pro Bono I follow the case my father and grandfather were involved in, defending a 14-year-old girl named Caril Fugate who was sent to prison for assisting her ex-boyfriend on a murder spree.  There were mounds of evidence that she had nothing to do with the murders, including the fact that in the end she ran to the police and was the reason her ex-boyfriend was even captured.  Yet the prosecuting attorney, who had already filed charges against her before she escaped, did everything he could to gather evidence against her, even interrogating her without a lawyer, or even telling her that he had pressed charges against her.  Like in the Avery case, he did not investigate the crime from both sides before coming to a conclusion; he was looking for a promotion, which comes about by a high conviction rate, not from a rate of fairness.

Caril’s trial was as absurd as Steven Avery’s.  Seventy-two violations were later cited, including a juror who made a bet that she would be found guilty, the judge not allowing my grandfather’s partner to work on the case, and the fact that Caril was interrogated without being offered a lawyer, even after she asked for one.

Despite all this, she was denied a new trial.  The first problem with her case and with Avery’s was that the judge who handled the original case was in charge of deciding whether or not they’d get new trials.  In this they are being expected to admit their own guilt and/or incompetence, so the very act of asking them for a new trial is a waste of time lawyers have to do in the appeals process.  They can then climb a legal ladder that is set up to protect its own system rather than find what’s fair.

Most absurdly, the defense attorneys, if they’ve stuck around, must find something new to introduce into a new trial.  Even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the trial was fixed, such as in Steven Avery and his nephew’s cases, the conviction will remain as is unless new evidence can be brought forward.  They might bring it to the Supreme Court eventually, but they only consider cases that affect the entire nation.  Again, justice isn’t concerned with one man.  The system, as it currently stands, does not care about being fair, only about protecting itself.

The only chance some of these people have is if they’ve been given a chance at parole.  As they point out in Making a Murderer, the convict must then admit to being guilty in order to have a chance at parole.  They have to admit guilt so they can show how they’ve changed and deserve a new chance.  Caril went through this exact dilemma after she exhausted all chances at a new trial.  When the parole board asked her how much she had changed, she said it was an unusual subject for her.  She still maintained her innocence, but she knew no trial was possible.  She still satisfied the parole board by saying she had indeed changed in prison over the past 17 years, however, which is why she was finally released.

Steven Avery does not have that chance this time.  He was convicted without the possibility of parole.  This always looks good for prosecutors on their records because they’re “tough on crime.”  However, it really means that innocent people are denied a last chance at justice, as messed up as it might be.  This is also a problem with the death penalty, as that final solution of course denies any chance at later restitution; and as we’ve seen in Making a Murderer, police can, and have, set people up.

The best way to fix all of this is to change the system overall.  When I was doing research for Pro Bono, I was appalled at how fixed the system was toward keeping people in jail, even in the face of obvious and overwhelming evidence.  The system is set up to protect itself, and the legal representatives, who are often watching each other’s back more than they are protecting the public.  I don’t know exactly how to do it, but the first step is in recognizing where the problem lies.  Only then can the issue be addressed, and hopefully one day fixed.

How Long Should My Book Be?

An important part of the equation of any book should be its length.  The simple and not so inaccurate answer is however long it needs to be.  I'm a big believer in stories going as long as they're entertaining and/or interesting.  I think that when people try to artificially lengthen or shrink a story, they damage it.  In fact, I wish movies would switch to a more open format, charging viewers based on their lengths.  There are some movies that would be wonderful 30 minute stories but feel stretched into two hours, (I felt that way when I saw Ex Machina,) while some movies are true epics and should last 3 or 4 hours, or be series.  (I felt that way when I saw the movie Elizabeth.)

However, you do want to make sure to categorize your book accordingly, then price and promote it based on its length.  If a story is more of a novella, you don't want people expecting an epic and being let down.  That only leads to bad reviews.  Likewise, if your story is a simple one, and it drags on, people aren't going to finish it.

Having come from the film industry, my own rule of thumb on novels comes from comparing the number of minutes to the number of words.  A typical movie is a little over or under 100 minutes, (about 70 minutes to 130 minutes.)  A typical novel is a little over or under 100,000 words, (about 70,000 to 130,000 words.)  That's average.  If you have a specific promotional goal in mind that you plan to sell it like it's Game of Thrones, you go for more words.  If you're going for a more serialized view where you're coming out with a lot of books, you go for fewer.  But be careful how few you go, you don't want the readers feeling it's more of a short story.

There are things you can do with sizes of pages and typsetting with the physical books, but remember that most people are purchasing your books on Kindle, so word count is more important than ever today.

10,000 - 30,000 words usually makes a short story, and 30,000 to 70,000 is usually a novella, but these numbers are flexible.  The most important thing to bear in mind is what your readers will be interested in, and be honest with them, because the most important thing to remember is that reviews trump everything in the book world.  They not only cause people to decide whether or not they'll buy your book, but they also place you up or down the rankings on sites like Amazon.

Kindle Promotions on Amazon

Over the past year or so, Amazon has added some options for promoting your book on their site.  They seem to be the only ones who understand that the more money you make as an author, the more they make as a platform, a lesson Barnes & Noble seems unable to figure out; but whatever.  Let's look at the three major options on Amazon.

First, there are the two options that are free to you: the Kindle Countdown Deal and the Free Book Promotion.  Of these two, you would think Kindle Countdown Deal is the better one.  First, it puts your book on sale without making it free, so you make some money from it.  It also places it prominently on the website so there's more exposure.  There's also a timer with this ad so people feel under pressure to buy it soon.  This sort of advertising works a lot with larger companies.

But somehow it hasn't seemed to work so well with independents.  When this option first came out, a lot of people tried it, and quickly said they were going back to Free Book Promotions because they saw better results with it.  I experienced the same thing.  I think that ultimately it comes down to people not wanting to take a chance, not even with a dollar, on something they don't know.

As for the Free Book Promotion, this allows you to give away your book for free for five days.  There's still a part of me that rolls my eyes when I hear that.  Gee, can I really give away my own product for free?  Thanks!  And what's worse, the book does not get placed in a better position; people still need to find it and happen to notice that it's free without a catch.  Generally, you have to pay other sites to show off that this sale is going on.  So why does it work so well?

It basically puts your name out there to people who weren't going to take a chance on you otherwise.  I think people who are giving a chance to unknown authors are wanting to see as much as they can for free before purchasing anything.  That's why series work best for indie authors.  If you have a solo book, once you've given it away for free, that's it.  They might buy it as a physical book, but what you're really hoping for is that enough people download it that the book raises high in the rankings, and when it goes up for sale at a price again, it's more visible on the site.  This does happen, but it fades back into obscurity pretty quickly, and whatever sales you got is what you got.

But when it's a series, that one book is given away, and people become curious as to what the next book will be, and the next, and so on.  The general strategy today is to release the first book for free as much as possible, always advertising the fact that it's free, and have the second and third one available for a price, sometimes 99 center for the second, then 2.99 for the third to get the readers slowly into it.

The paid ad campaign is the newest feature.  Ads never work as well as reviews in books, but they certainly don't hurt.  Sometimes all the social media work in the world doesn't help as much as just having your book image appear on thousands of computer screens.  And best of all, Amazon only charges you for the clicks that went through, meaning you're only paying for the ad when it's successful enough to grab a customer.

In this way, I believe it's helpful.  It's not the end-all be-all.  You need to remember that the ad campaign needs to be run in conjunction with other efforts, and it's more of a long-term goal rather than a short one.  You'll get more people looking at your work and who you are when they see this ad, which will hopefully turn into sales.  This is another reason series are a bit better, because they can stick with you, checking you out from time to time as your work keeps getting released.  And that journey sometimes begins with an ad.

So what I'll be using is Free Book Promotions on the first book in my series in conjunction with an ad campaign that comes out more and more the closer we come to the release of book 2.

The Top 6 Mistakes People Make Self-Publishing a Book

I've been watching this woman's work for a while now and she has wonderful advice for independent authors and publishers.  This is about mistakes that indies often make.