# Brian's Sales and Marketing Thread



## BWFoster78 (Aug 31, 2015)

As of a few hours ago, I am officially a self-published author! I'm a little disappointed that, despite the novella being live for those few hours, I have not yet made enough money to buy a private island, but maybe I should give it until tomorrow ...

I thought that, for posterity's (or posterior's?) sake, I should chronicle my rise through the ranks of the great unwashed masses. This thread shall document my exploits.

Each month (for the first few months anyway; if anyone is actually interested in the thread, I'll keep it going if it's not too much of a hassle.) I'll document what I'm publishing, my expectations for it, what I'm doing to promote it, and what my sales numbers were for the previous month. If you want clarification or details on anything, let me know.

New Release: _Abuse of Power_, a novella that serves as a prequel for _Rise of the Mages_

Total investment in _Abuse of Power_: $339.02

Expected Sales for September:

Here are the factors going against me - I'm an unknown author self publishing a debut work. I'm not doing any promotions or advertising.  In fact, I'm planning on making the novella free for the first 5 days of October, so I'm actively encouraging my email list not to buy it (maybe I need to work on the fundamental concepts of how to market  ).  Anecdotally, short works don't tend to sell as well as longer ones. I love my cover (my artist did exactly what I told her to do!), but I'm not sure it communicates the story clearly enough.

Factors going for me - KU/KDP raises the books' profile a little, and I get money for pages read.  I've got reviews lined up, and so far, people seemed to have really liked it.

My crystal ball is on the fritz, but I'd be disappointed with less than $20 total and astounded if it brought in more than $50.  Therefore, *I'm setting the over/under at $35*. (New gambling game! Sweet!)

Total spent on becoming a self-published author: $1641.21

Total money made thus far off writing: $50.00

Total Profit: -1591.21


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## BWFoster78 (Sep 1, 2015)

One other thing that I meant to note: Keywords used

clean sweet romance, fantasy romance, love story, happy happily for now ever after ending, character driven, wizard magic powers mages epic fantasy action adventure quest thriller romance medieval earl duke noble nobility heir ruler rich soldier army duty fugitive kidnap escape tavern courage imprisoned executed vengeance feel-good magic sword horse law justice book ebook novella kindle series

I listed Romance -> Fantasy and Fantasy -> Epic as the categories.  The keywords also put me in:

Books > Romance > Fantasy
Books > Romance > Military
Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Epic
Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Fantasy
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Inspirational
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Military
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Epic
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery


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## PaulineMRoss (Sep 1, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> I listed Romance -> Fantasy and Fantasy -> Epic as the categories.



Mine started in Romance -> Fantasy too, but they felt very out of place amongst all the nekkid men and billionnaire shifter stuff. Romance is also a h-u-g-e category, hard to get noticed in. Since yours is (I would say) YA, you might want to consider going for the Juvenile main cat instead (there's a fantasy/magic sub-cat). Juvenile doesn't mean children's, it covers YA as well, and if you set the minimum age to 13 or 14, you exclude the kids anyway. It's a much smaller cat, and easier to make a splash in.

As an example, I never, ever showed up in the Romance lists, no matter how well the books were selling, but with the Juvenile cat, any rank better than about 30,000 gets me into the top 100.


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## skip.knox (Sep 1, 2015)

I agree with Pauline on this one. I'm about a third of the way through and I can see the developing love story, but Romance category readers are going to want to see the romance angle right away. What they get, right away, is military stuff. Except for the swords, this could be a Call of Duty op. The tone is far from romance, even in the second chapter. I'd lead with Fantasy but keep Romance somewhere in there.


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## BWFoster78 (Sep 1, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Mine started in Romance -> Fantasy too, but they felt very out of place amongst all the nekkid men and billionnaire shifter stuff. Romance is also a h-u-g-e category, hard to get noticed in. Since yours is (I would say) YA, you might want to consider going for the Juvenile main cat instead (there's a fantasy/magic sub-cat). Juvenile doesn't mean children's, it covers YA as well, and if you set the minimum age to 13 or 14, you exclude the kids anyway. It's a much smaller cat, and easier to make a splash in.
> 
> As an example, I never, ever showed up in the Romance lists, no matter how well the books were selling, but with the Juvenile cat, any rank better than about 30,000 gets me into the top 100.



Pauline,

I guess I was hoping it would rank in one of those 9 subcategories? Is that a bad way to look at it?

Also, regarding YA, are you talking about the novel or the novella? I would think the novel could easily fit in YA. The novella, not so much it seemed to me.


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## PaulineMRoss (Sep 2, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> I guess I was hoping it would rank in one of those 9 subcategories? Is that a bad way to look at it?
> 
> Also, regarding YA, are you talking about the novel or the novella? I would think the novel could easily fit in YA. The novella, not so much it seemed to me.



Romance -> Fantasy is infested with shifters and paranormal stuff, not to mention stuff that really should be in erotica. Regular fantasy that happens to have a romance element simply isn't going to get anywhere near the top 100 unless it sells gangbusters. The #100 book is currently ranked at 17K. You'll show up in the hot new releases list, but it's still easier to avoid the Romance cat unless the book is outright romance. In my opinion. But you can tinker with this stuff. Nothing's cast in stone.

As to YA, that's a very broad category these days, encompassing everything that's not outright dripping with blood and gore on every page. Your books are very clean in terms of sex, violence and theme, and the writing style is easy to read, so yes, I think the tone of both novel and novella is very YA.


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## BWFoster78 (Sep 30, 2015)

I'll do a full monthly update tomorrow, but I had to say this:

After being released for only a little over 24 hours, my novel has already outsold and had more pages read than my novella did in an entire month.

Is that good or bad?


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## PaulineMRoss (Sep 30, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> After being released for only a little over 24 hours, my novel has already outsold and had more pages read than my novella did in an entire month. Is that good or bad?



Yikes, it's out already! For some reason, I thought it was tomorrow. {Rushes off to download it}

PS Outselling is good! Very, very good.


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## BWFoster78 (Sep 30, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Yikes, it's out already! For some reason, I thought it was tomorrow. {Rushes off to download it}
> 
> PS Outselling is good! Very, very good.



The original plan was to publish on 10/1, but I'm doing a promo with Abuse free on 10/1 to 10/5.  I wanted to put a link for Rise in Abuse, and I wanted to give reviewers a little time before I (hopefully) get all those promo eyeballs on it.

It's just kinda funny that I got, literally, more in one day than for an entire month.  I realize that it probably won't sell like this for the entire month, but it's fun seeing those spikes!


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## kennyc (Sep 30, 2015)

Good Luck with it.


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## PaulineMRoss (Sep 30, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> It's just kinda funny that I got, literally, more in one day than for an entire month.  I realize that it probably won't sell like this for the entire month, but it's fun seeing those spikes!



Yeah, being a published author is fun.  And it's already at 19K in the store - which, in case you were wondering, is awesome. Congrats, and enjoy the ride!

PS Don't forget to add it to your sig.


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## BWFoster78 (Sep 30, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Yeah, being a published author is fun.  And it's already at 19K in the store - which, in case you were wondering, is awesome. Congrats, and enjoy the ride!
> 
> PS Don't forget to add it to your sig.



It's at 65 in YA Sword and Sorcery, exactly one spot behind _Wearing the Cape_, a book I've read and enjoyed.  Who Hoo!

I shall add it to my sig post haste.


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## Russ (Sep 30, 2015)

Just bought my copy.  Will try and get it reviewed within the next ten days or so.


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## Steerpike (Sep 30, 2015)

Nice job, Brian. That's great news!


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## Svrtnsse (Sep 30, 2015)

Sweet! Best of luck with it.


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## Incanus (Sep 30, 2015)

Congrats, Brian.

I was just poking around on Amazon and found an author named Brian W. Foster who wasn't you.  I guess you're already aware of that, but thought I'd just mention it.


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## BWFoster78 (Sep 30, 2015)

Incanus,

Yes.  I am aware.

To all the well wishers: Thanks! To be clear though, sales are good in comparison to my meager expectations, not in absolute terms.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 1, 2015)

A month of actual sales and ... I still can't afford that island. Bummer.

Sales for September (Note that I released Rise a little early and had some sales. I'm going to count those sales on next month's totals, though. Also, note that the pages read and the quantity sold are hard numbers but the money is soft since there are conversion rates and other factors that I'm estimating.):

_Abuse of Power_ - 12 sales, 1381 pages read = $25.80

If you bet the under, you won!  Still, it's above my "disappointed with" number.

That brings my total "profit" on the novella to -$313.22.

I also had some more production costs (mainly beta reading for _Repulsive_) and a surprise royalty check for Man in White ($3.36!).

Total spent on becoming a self-published author: $1854.03

Total money made thus far off writing (including estimates from September above): $79.16

Total Profit: -$1774.87

I'm going the wrong way!

Lessons Learned:

An unpromoted debut novella doesn't seem likely to generate a lot of sales.

Facebook is kinda worthless for selling books. My announcement posting for _Abuse of Power_ got more traction than any post I'd ever made on FB. It reached over a thousand people.  Several promised to buy the novella.  The resulting sales jump? Nada.  Maybe a few of the subsequent sales the next week came from FB friends, but I have no way to verify that.

Expected Sales for October:

In the first two days going live, I sold 17 copies of _Rise of the Mages_, and I've already surpassed 5000 page reads.  From my experience with Abuse of Power, it seems like sales spike the day of the release and slow way down after that.  Still, I'd expect at least another 10 sales and 10 reads (almost 600 pages/read) minimum over the course of the month.  The big question is what will happen with my_ Abuse of Power_ promotion.  I'm running it free from 10/1 to 10/5 and have that information scheduled to be run on several sites.  Since the novella is basically a big advertisement for the novel, I'm hoping for some sell through. 

I'm still having trouble getting my crystal ball to work, but I'd be disappointed if I made less than $100, but I think that over $200 would probably be optimistic.  Therefore, I'm setting the over/under at $150.


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## kennyc (Oct 1, 2015)

Thanks for the on-going and detailed status Brian.

I have nothing like you level of detail, but my exploits in the self-publishing (non-novel world) have been meager. Over the last three years something enough for a few nice meals out and that's about it. 

Wishing you the best! Looks like you are definitely on the way!


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## PaulineMRoss (Oct 2, 2015)

Brian, I'm finding it fascinating to watch your progress. Once you start doing some promotion, revenues will rise, but those pesky expenses keep going up, too! 

I'm still in negative profitability, although I've now had 5 straight months of $1,000+ royalties, which has helped. I'm hoping the fourth book will get me to the $2,000+ level, but we'll see.

PS You have no idea how pleased I am to see Rise of the Mages out there in the world, after brewing for so long.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 2, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Brian, I'm finding it fascinating to watch your progress. Once you start doing some promotion, revenues will rise, but those pesky expenses keep going up, too!
> 
> I'm still in negative profitability, although I've now had 5 straight months of $1,000+ royalties, which has helped. I'm hoping the fourth book will get me to the $2,000+ level, but we'll see.
> 
> PS You have no idea how pleased I am to see Rise of the Mages out there in the world, after brewing for so long.



It's so nice to see stuff actually happening.  With the release last month, there was activity at first and then ... nothing.  Days of no buys and no reads.  Right now, I'm back in that new release sweet spot, only with higher numbers, and I've got all the free downloads happening (23 sales of the novel so far, downloads of Abuse climbing toward 400).

I'm very interested to see:

1. Will I see sales of Rise from the promo? My expectation, based on last month, is that sales of Rise will drop low over the next couple of days.  If they rise instead, my assumption will be that there's sell through from the promo.

2. Will I see reads or sales of Abuse from the promo? Activity pretty much dropped to nothing. Combined with the 30-day cliff, I'll pretty much attribute any activity at all to a bump in awareness after the promo.

3. Will I see any subscriptions from the promo? The good news is that my list is growing (slowly).  The bad news is that I haven't had a single random reader sign up.  All new subscriptions have come from forums and from the people I emailed to do reviews.

4. Will I reach 1000 downloads?  That's kind of my pie in the sky goal.  I'm at around 350 at the end of my first full day, so it's a definite possibility.

I'll do a post on my results in a couple of weeks.


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## Russ (Oct 2, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> It's so nice to see stuff actually happening.  With the release last month, there was activity at first and then ... nothing.  Days of no buys and no reads.  Right now, I'm back in that new release sweet spot, only with higher numbers, and I've got all the free downloads happening (23 sales of the novel so far, downloads of Abuse climbing toward 400).
> 
> I'm very interested to see:
> 
> ...



Do you put a link at the end of your novel to let people sign up for your mailing list?


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 2, 2015)

Russ said:


> Do you put a link at the end of your novel to let people sign up for your mailing list?



Yes.

I think that it's a very good sign that six of the reviewers who have read the novella and/or the novel have signed up for the list.  I hope the reason I'm not seeing other sign ups yet is simply that my numbers to this point are so low.  I only had about 25 people read my novella last month, and I imagine a relatively low number of people sign up for newletters.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 5, 2015)

Hint: bet the over ...

Normally, I wouldn't spend time calculating the amount sold thus far, but I needed the pick me up.


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## ThinkerX (Oct 5, 2015)

> Normally, I wouldn't spend time calculating the amount sold thus far, but I needed the pick me up.



That bad?

I recollect a former poster here and best selling author make the comment that selling one book a day was doing dang good for the self-pub crowd.  Thus far, you seem to have that beat.

But here is another for you. My works incorporate a fair number of Lovecraftian elements, which is mostly published in magazines and small press stuff.  Last week, I was doing a bit of world building and outlining for a future novella in my series which incorporates a lot of these elements.  Did some checking.  A couple relevant tales (worth looking at for research - how did this guy deal with X?) were widely cited.  A grand total of two press runs (this was when self-pub was still mostly a paper operation).  100 books the first run, 75 the second.  Asking price on Amazon...$150.00.  Eeep...


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 5, 2015)

Actually, sales and reads are exceeding expectations. Reviews not so much.


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## ThinkerX (Oct 6, 2015)

Well, that's better.  (Your earlier post could be read either way).

I shall assume you are not in a position to quit your day job yet, though.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 6, 2015)

ThinkerX said:


> Well, that's better.  (Your earlier post could be read either way).
> 
> I shall assume you are not in a position to quit your day job yet, though.



Not quite.  I had pretty low expectations.  Still, it's nice that they're being exceeded.


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## ThinkerX (Oct 6, 2015)

Figure you'll hit triple digit sales by the end of the month?


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## PaulineMRoss (Oct 7, 2015)

ThinkerX said:


> Figure you'll hit triple digit sales by the end of the month?



I'd be surprised if he doesn't make it by the end of this week. His ranking has been bouncing between 7K and 10K for days now, and that equates to (very roughly) 12-15 sales plus borrows a day. 

He's made a terrific start.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 7, 2015)

I'm at 45 sales now and over 25,000 pages read (at almost 600 pages/book, the equivalent of about 41 books).  So combined, I'll probably go over 100 today.


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## PaulineMRoss (Oct 7, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> I'm at 45 sales now and over 25,000 pages read (at almost 600 pages/book, the equivalent of about 41 books).  So combined, I'll probably go over 100 today.



And those sales are at full price, too.  For comparison, it took me three months to get my first 100 sales.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 7, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> And those sales are at full price, too.  For comparison, it took me three months to get my first 100 sales.



My reviews are dreadful, though. 

In retrospect, asking men to review a book filled with angsty teenagers was probably a mistake.  I have no idea, though, what the other readers are thinking.  I know that a few people really enjoyed it, but the vast majority ... ????

Writing is a frustrating game.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Oct 7, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> My reviews are dreadful, though.


I don't know about that, Brian. Out of 7 total reviews, you've received:

3 five-star
1 four-star
2 three-star
1 two-star

That combines for an average rating of 3.85


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 7, 2015)

T.Allen.Smith said:


> I don't know about that, Brian. Out of 7 total reviews, you've received:
> 
> 3 five-star
> 1 four-star
> ...



Only 6 showing up for me, missing one of those 5 stars. That would certainly help!

Still, it's obvious that my male customers at least had serious issues with the characters.

EDIT: 7th review showed up, but it's a 3 star, not a 5.


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## Foah (Oct 10, 2015)

Just jumping in and saying how genuinly happy I am that you've gotten your book out there Brian. I really do hope it does well and garners good results, reviews and feedback, and I'll be following this thread among others related to the book with great interest


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 12, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> I'm very interested to see:
> 
> 1. Will I see sales of Rise from the promo? My expectation, based on last month, is that sales of Rise will drop low over the next couple of days.  If they rise instead, my assumption will be that there's sell through from the promo.
> 
> ...



I think the promotion has pretty much run its course, so here are my thoughts/results:

First of all, details on where I promoted –

Books Butterfly - $25
Lovely Books – Free
Booktastic - $10
Awesomegang –Free
The Book Circle – Free
Bknights – $5.50

Total - $40.50

1. I didn’t structure my promo as an experiment to determine effectiveness, so it’s hard to attribute sales.  However, sales of Rise did spike after the promo, and since that spike kept the book high in the rankings, I attribute a lot of the “success” to marketing. Though I can’t put a number to it, I really think that I’ve more than made my 40 bucks back.

2. I’m at zero sales, but I didn’t really expect any. I did, however, see some new pages read – 357.  Let’s be generous and say that I’d have expected 108 of those pages to have been read without the promotion (doubtful!); that gives me $1.27 from KU2 that is directly attributable to the promo.  Yay!

3. My biggest disappointment is that I’ve only seen one new subscription from an email address I didn’t recognize (most of my list growth is coming from people I emailed requesting reviews).  I would have been ecstatic in the five to ten range.  Also, not a single new review of AoP.  I would have hoped for a few at least.

4. Total downloads – 1090!  I’m very happy with that number.

Bottom Line: I got over a thousand downloads, a little bit of cash from KU2, much higher than expected sales for Rise, and one new subscription.  For a $40 investment, I’m pretty darn happy.

What’s Next:

Repulsive – I’ve been slacking lately, so there’s no way I’m getting this thing out by Nov 1.  I could have it ready by mid to late Nov, though, but I’m reconsidering that strategy. Basically, nothing I’ve done has promoted this book at all.  I think I’m going to finish this and stick in in a drawer for a while.  My ultimate goal is to publish Gryphon in May 16, Repulsive in June 16, and Attractive in July 16. My plan is to run a Facebook ad in May offering a free short story related to Repulsive in exchange for signing up for my mailing list.  If I can add a hundred subscribers who are likely to want to read Repulsive, that should give me a little bit of a boost when I release.

Abuse of Power – If I leave it in KU, I’d be surprised if this thing brings me in a buck a month. Basically, the novella is never going to make back the money that I put into it, but  that’s okay. It’s value is as a loss leader to promote my other books. I think I’m going to re-up for KU through February and take it out after that, make it permafree, and use it to build up my subscriber list prior to next May.

Rise of the Mages – Though this book is selling well, it’s not getting me the kind of response that I want. I’ve decided to tweak it a bit to improve character likeability.  My plan is not to greatly impact the story, but making the characters a little more palatable to the demographic who is panning them can only help me in the long run. Longterm, Rise is key to my overall strategy since the series is going to run 5-7 books total.  I’ll drop it temporarily to 2.99 next May and do light promotion.  When the third book is released, I’ll promo a drop to .99, and I’ll promo it for free when the fourth book is released.


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## PaulineMRoss (Oct 12, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> Rise of the Mages – Though this book is selling well, it’s not getting me the kind of response that I want. I’ve decided to tweak it a bit to improve character likeability.  My plan is not to greatly impact the story, but making the characters a little more palatable to the demographic who is panning them can only help me in the long run.



Brian, don't panic over the reviews. If they're coming from reviewers you approached, you just have a mismatch issue. The book is selling really well, so you're definitely hitting the spot with readers. You'll get a trickle of organic reviews from now on, and you'll find that regular readers are much less critical than bloggers and semi-professional reviewers.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 12, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Brian, don't panic over the reviews. If they're coming from reviewers you approached, you just have a mismatch issue. The book is selling really well, so you're definitely hitting the spot with readers. You'll get a trickle of organic reviews from now on, and you'll find that regular readers are much less critical than bloggers and semi-professional reviewers.



Pauline,

When five people say the same thing, I think I have to listen.

I've given a lot of thought to this issue. There's no way that this particular demographic is going to go from hating my angsty characters to loving them. Trying to convert them would entail massive surgery on my story, and I'm not willing to go that far.

On the other hand, it is obvious to me that certain aspects of my characters aren't coming through clearly, and that's my fault.  I think a quick bit of tweaking can highlight some of the characters' positive traits, de-emphasize some negative traits, and eliminate some of the annoyance factor.

Financially, will these tweaks pay for themselves with increased sales? I really don't know. But I do know that I'll feel a lot better about making the improvements.


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## Svrtnsse (Oct 12, 2015)

This strikes me as a really difficult decision to make. 
"Do I change up the story I've already published, or do I leave it as it is, even if it may be flawed?"

On the one hand, I'd be very reluctant to change anything after it's "done" (meaning published). On the other hand, if I thought my MC might not be as likable as I'd hoped, and I plan on writing several more books about him, I really should fix him up to give new readers a better first impression.

If the story is recently released, it may not be such a big deal to change the story up, considering it'll be around "forever"

Ome concern would be handling reviews. Are there public reviews that say the MC is unlikable, and is there a way to respond to them and say you've fixed that, or wll you have to just leave them as they are. I can't imagine you'd have an easy time getting a reviewer to reread the story and rewrite their review.

Then there's the time it'd take, but maybe that's minor.

Would you mind sharing some of your reasoning behind the decision? It seems to be a bit of a dilemma.


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## PaulineMRoss (Oct 12, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> When five people say the same thing, I think I have to listen.



And next week, you might get five people saying how much they love your characters. You will never please everybody, and you really shouldn't try to (in my opinion). You'll drive yourself mad if you do. Reviews are for other readers, they're not for authors. Ignore them (easier said than done, I know!).


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## ThinkerX (Oct 12, 2015)

> Repulsive — I’ve been slacking lately, so there’s no way I’m getting this thing out by Nov 1. I could have it ready by mid to late Nov, though, but I’m reconsidering that strategy. Basically, nothing I’ve done has promoted this book at all. I think I’m going to finish this and stick in in a drawer for a while. My ultimate goal is to publish Gryphon in May 16, Repulsive in June 16, and Attractive in July 16. My plan is to run a Facebook ad in May offering a free short story related to Repulsive in exchange for signing up for my mailing list. If I can add a hundred subscribers who are likely to want to read Repulsive, that should give me a little bit of a boost when I release.



I had thought your earlier writing schedules to be a mite ambitious.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 13, 2015)

> Would you mind sharing some of your reasoning behind the decision?



Not at all.

When evaluating any feedback, the first question I always ask is, “From a standpoint of fundamental Writing/Story Telling theory, is the critique valid?”

Let’s say that someone states this: “I love zombie unicorns. Your story doesn’t contain zombie unicorns. Therefore, I hate your story.” It’s impossible to fulfill every reader’s personal preferences. Adding zombie unicorns based on even multiple comments would be idiotic.

An actual example of this kind of issue is a complaint about my characters using modern language. I made the decision from the start that my characters would act and talk like they’re from Dawson’s Creek instead of Westeros. Some readers aren’t going to like that decision. Maybe in retrospect it would have been better had I chose differently, but at this point, my reaction to that comment is, “Oh well …”

Doe the likeability issue, on the other hand, represent a fundamental flaw in my writing? If I’m being honest, I have to say, “Abso freaking lutely.”

Chapter 3 of my book shows Xan to be self-conscious and desperate for affection as he interacts with Ashley.  I think that that chapter will cause a segment of my readers to empathize heavily with Xan and find him highly likeable. The fundamental flaw comes in when you remove this reader reaction from the equation. Quite frankly, I failed to establish character likeability strongly enough for those readers unlikely easily develop that strong empathy.

Let’s divide my readers into three categories:

Cat 1 Readers — Those that find Xan likeable/relatable. My book is written for these readers, and I think they’re likely to purchase the following books in the series.

Cat 2 Readers — Those that abhor my book on a fundamental level. No matter how good you are at writing and storytelling, every decision you make risks turning off some segment of the population. No book ever has pleased every reader. These people are not going to buy any more books in my series no matter what changes I make.

Cat 3 Readers — Those that don’t dig Xan from Chapter 3, but quite possibly (based on other feedback), they find my plot and writing to be pretty good.  These people are on the fence about continuing the series.

Ultimately, my decision to make revisions is based on two factors:

1. Emotional — My characters are likeable. The fact that they’re being viewed as unlikeable by so many people is a result of my failure to communicate clearly. I hate, hate, hate having my book out there with such a visible flaw.

2. Analytical — There is absolutely nothing I can do to convert the Cat 2 readers, and it would be hard to screw up what I’ve established with the Cat 1 readers. The question thus becomes, “Can I do anything to win over more of the Cat 3 readers.” Yes. Readers who make it through a first book are naturally inclined to want to read the rest of the series. The number one thing I can do to make them continue is to not annoy them. Right now, the characters are annoying a relevant percentage of the readers, and I feel that this annoyance is correctable without seriously altering the story.

As an example: After Xan is rescued from prison, he kinda says “thanks,” but that’s glossed over in favor of increasing conflict. Just adding a couple of sentences later where Xan expresses his gratitude to his friends for rescuing him would help make him more likeable. After all, what kind of freaking jerk doesn’t even thank the people who risked their lives to save him?

I’m paying a guy who betaread Repulsive $150 to make targeted suggestions for improving likeability. The goal is to do a quick (less than two weeks total) run through that does not change the character’s personalities or alter the story. Basically, I want to make a few tweaks here and there that emphasize the characters’ strong traits and downplay their flaws a tad while still keeping them real.

Some numbers for your consideration:

- By the end of the month, Rise is on track for around 200 reads at full price
- On a $40 budget, I was able to generate almost 1100 downloads of a novella
- If I end up with 5 books in the series, purchases of the four sequels will get me $14 a reader

I do not think it is unrealistic to think that 5000 people will eventually read Rise of the Mages.  If only 11 of those readers continue my series based on my changes, I’ve made my $150 back.  11 out of 5000 (.2%) is an extremely realistic number to achieve.  What if I have 10000 people read the book?  What if the conversion rate improvement is much higher than .2%?  Could I get 100 more purchases?  What if the series runs to 7 books (another $7 per reader)?



> Ome concern would be handling reviews. Are there public reviews that say the MC is unlikable, and is there a way to respond to them and say you've fixed that, or wll you have to just leave them as they are. I can't imagine you'd have an easy time getting a reviewer to reread the story and rewrite their review.



What I want to do is make some kind of comment or statement that the work has been edited based on reader responses to my ARC.  Almost universally, however, the advice is not to engage reviewers publically and not to draw attention to your changes.  Though I don’t fully understand that advice, I’m probably going to adhere to it. I’ll simply upload the changes and let it ride.  Based on the experience of other authors, later reviewers will come along and say, “The reviewer who said that the characters were unlikeable was obviously on crack.”

One other sticky situation, though: Some bloggers have promised reviews of the book, and they obviously haven’t gotten to that point in their queue yet. Since I clearly indicated the version I sent them to be an ARC, I don’t think it would be out of line to forward them an updated version.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 13, 2015)

ThinkerX said:


> I had thought your earlier writing schedules to be a mite ambitious.



The thing is that, if I'm going to achieve my goals, I need to adhere to that kind of a schedule.

The combination of some recent adverse life events and those early reviews has really thrown me off my game.  I've got to get back on track!  The quantity of early sales of Rise really tells me that I can do this.  My goal is visible; all I have to do is reach out and grab it.

EDIT: In my initial post for this month, I put my over/under at $150.  My "I'd be surprised if I exceeded amount" was $200.  I'd have told you that $300 was crazy talk.

This morning, I'm well over $500 total.


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## Russ (Oct 14, 2015)

As I reader I can tell you Xan was not particularly likeable for me.  I wanted more of that Chapter 3 stuff that made me want to cheer for him. In fact he has become some powerful by the end of the book it cries out for him to have weaknesses to put any outcome tension or sympathy for him back into play.

Quite like your numbers though.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 14, 2015)

Russ said:


> As I reader I can tell you Xan was not particularly likeable for me.  I wanted more of that Chapter 3 stuff that made me want to cheer for him. In fact he has become some powerful by the end of the book it cries out for him to have weaknesses to put any outcome tension or sympathy for him back into play.
> 
> Quite like your numbers though.



I think this comment illustrates my point above nicely.

My numbers at the moment are only telling me that the combination of cover, pitch, and sample are drawing in customers.  I have very little data that indicates one way or the other if customers will buy the sequel.

As stated above, I do have data from a certain demographic that says, "Hey, I don't like your characters."  Other demographics don't seem to have that issue, or if they do, don't have that issue to nearly the same degree.

I have a choice:

1. I say, "Oh well, that demographic just isn't going to be my audience."
2. I try to make the book more palatable to that demographic.

Every fiber of my being tells me that the right call is to go for choice 2.

EDIT: I misspoke in the line above.  There's actually a fiber in my big toe that thinks I should go with choice 1, but every other fiber of my being ...


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 15, 2015)

My commercial "success" continues, inexplicably, to climb.  When I checked this morning, the book is in the low 6000 range for all paid Kindle books.  Yesterday, I had 7 sales (a good, but not record day; I've gotten a few 1-2 days, but mostly I'm in the 6 range with my best day being 11).  Reads, though, are still trending steadily upward.  For the last week, I've averaged 5000 a day.  Yesterday, I hit over 9000.

Though I still feel pretty hammered by the negative comments about my characters, I am seeing some positive signs other than the much higher expected sales and borrows:

1. I got another organic list sign up - a great indication of a positive response to my writing.
2. A slew of new ratings on Goodreads that are mostly in the 4 and 5 range.  Note that Goodreads ratings are typically lower than Amazon rating.  A 3 on Amazon is generally considered to mean "I don't really recommend this book" whereas a 3 on Goodreads usually means "This book is pretty good overall."  So 4's and 5's on Goodreads indicate a really positive response.
3. Though I've had 0 new sales of Abuse, I'm trending way upward in reads compared even to when it was a new release.  Since the book is buried in the rankings, I can only assume that people are reading Rise, searching out my other books, and reading Abuse.  That's a really, really good thing.


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## skip.knox (Oct 16, 2015)

I just wanted to say that I both admire and appreciate your willingness to be so open about the whole publication process, including the difficult parts. This thread is far more informative about what it means to publish than most books I have read on the topic. Good on ya.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 19, 2015)

skip.knox said:


> I just wanted to say that I both admire and appreciate your willingness to be so open about the whole publication process, including the difficult parts. This thread is far more informative about what it means to publish than most books I have read on the topic. Good on ya.



Skip,

I'm glad it's helping someone.  Prior to finding kboards, I really wanted factual information saying, "Hey, I did this and this is what happened."  I've gotten a lot of help from this board and others, so I'm glad I can give back a little bit.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 23, 2015)

I just hit "Save and Publish" on the revised version of _Rise of the Mages_, and I'm content that I did the right thing.

Reading over the developmental editor's comments (I used him for _Repulsive_, but he hadn't read _Rise_.), it's obvious that, in my zeal to increase conflict, I really overemphasized (and repeated way too much) certain negative character traits and didn't accentuate enough positive traits.  Every conversation became an argument and every argument a physical fight.

That's great for conflict, but not so great for establishing likeable characters.

Truthfully, I don't think that every reader is going to like my characters, and that's okay.  The point was to make the characters more likeable than they were, and I think that I accomplished that without major revisions to either plot or personality.  I did add a few minor scenes, but mainly I deleted a lot of gratuitous over-the-top hostility.


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## Russ (Oct 23, 2015)

Odd question, as a prior purchaser of "Rise" does amazon send me the updated version or am I stuck with my original?


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## Steerpike (Oct 23, 2015)

Russ said:


> Odd question, as a prior purchaser of "Rise" does amazon send me the updated version or am I stuck with my original?



You should get a notification that it has been updated, though I have to admit if I bought a book and read it and then it got substantial substantive updates afterward I wouldn't be very happy about it.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 23, 2015)

Russ,

To the best of my knowledge, you are stuck with the original.  I'd gladly email you a .mobi file of the new if you wish, though.


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## FifthView (Oct 23, 2015)

Russ said:


> Odd question, as a prior purchaser of "Rise" does amazon send me the updated version or am I stuck with my original?




I've received a few updated versions of my purchases, on Kindle, over the last however many months.   I was a little surprised because I didn't know that could happen.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 23, 2015)

Steerpike said:


> You should get a notification that it has been updated, though I have to admit if I bought a book and read it and then it got substantial substantive updates afterward I wouldn't be very happy about it.



According to the thread linked below, ebooks published by indie authors are not updated.

This is how to Push Updated Content to Already-Owned Ebooks

I haven't tried it myself, though ... It's possible this could have changed.


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## Steerpike (Oct 23, 2015)

Looks like some conflicting information there. Still, I know major substantive edits would both me as a prior purchaser, and I don't use highlighting or any of those features that might be thrown off if the changes are significant. On the other hand, fixing typos and grammatical errors seems like a good idea (or making major substantive edits before the sales numbers run too high).


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 23, 2015)

> Looks like some conflicting information there.



My understanding (though I scanned the thread rather than reading it comprehensively) is that traditionally published books absolutely do update. If one wants to existing customers to receive an update as an indie author, however, special permission must be granted by Amazon.


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## Steerpike (Oct 23, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> My understanding (though I scanned the thread rather than reading it comprehensively) is that traditionally published books absolutely do update. If one wants to existing customers to receive an update as an indie author, however, special permission must be granted by Amazon.



Yeah, but it looks like some people said they still weren't getting the updates. If the update goes through, I assume the reader would get a chance to be notified, but it looks like if they have auto-update on it just goes to them.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 26, 2015)

A little bit ticked at Amazon at the moment.  I heard from two different ARC reviewers today that they posted glowing reviews of my book right after I published it.  Neither of the reviews showed up.

I've asked both to repost.  We'll see.


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## kennyc (Oct 27, 2015)

No wonder I never get glowing reviews.


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## PaulineMRoss (Oct 27, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> A little bit ticked at Amazon at the moment.  I heard from two different ARC reviewers today that they posted glowing reviews of my book right after I published it.  Neither of the reviews showed up.
> 
> I've asked both to repost.  We'll see.



Amazon's getting antsy about reviews at the moment. They're clamping down on any reviews where the reviewer is deemed to have some connection to the author. If these ARC reviewers are known to you in some way, that may be the problem. In my experience, if a review doesn't stick, repeated attempts don't work either, but it's worth a try.

ETA: Did they post to Amazon.com? Sometimes people only post to their local Amazon.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 27, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Amazon's getting antsy about reviews at the moment. They're clamping down on any reviews where the reviewer is deemed to have some connection to the author. If these ARC reviewers are known to you in some way, that may be the problem. In my experience, if a review doesn't stick, repeated attempts don't work either, but it's worth a try.
> 
> ETA: Did they post to Amazon.com? Sometimes people only post to their local Amazon.



I really think it was a system glitch.  These were posted around the time of my original loading of Rise, and if my memory serves, there were lots of reports of screwy stuff happening.

One of them reposted already, and it showed up.  The other said she'd try to repost today.

BTW, I discovered both these reviewers by email addresses on their Amazon profiles when they left reviews for similar books.  No personal connection to them at all.


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## FifthView (Oct 27, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> BTW, I discovered both these reviewers by email addresses on their Amazon profiles when they left reviews for similar books.  No personal connection to them at all.



I've been researching Amazon's policy this morning–a little.  A flurry of articles and blog posts from this summer suggest a partially automated method for "weeding out" reviews from those personally connected to authors.  No one knows for certain what algorithms Amazon uses, although many suspect that social media links and other data mining methods are used.  Amazon says their methods are proprietary and keeps them secret.  Some reviews could be flagged falsely, depending on whatever Amazon finds.

It's also possible that those ARC reviewers failed to include some necessary info in their initial reviews.  For instance, a disclosure about receiving the copy free for an honest review  But who knows what happened.


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## BWFoster78 (Oct 27, 2015)

I"m really interested to see if the tweaks I made to the novel will improve my ratings, so I used Book Deals Review service this morning.  That combined with sending out some other requests and some bloggers who have me in their queue will hopefully provide me with 10-15 reviews of the revisions.

Not sure how I'm going to proceed if the results aren't more positive ...

In the meantime, I'm also curious to see what kind of sell through I'm getting from AoP to RotM.  I plan on setting AoP to .99 (can't do a countdown deal b/c I've already done free days and I plan to do another round of free when I release Repulsive) from 11/16 to 11/20. I spend $22 on Betty Book Freak, Sweet Free Books, and Book Deals combined.

At 30% commission, there's little (no!) chance of me making that money back unless there's strong sell through, and even then, it's unlikely.  Still, considering the amount I've made so far, I feel okay throwing a few $ away as an experiment.

I'm assuming that, in the weeks leading up to the promo, I'll get a pretty good idea of the baseline of sales when I'm doing no marketing.  Any bump over that baseline, then, should be the direct result of the promo.


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 2, 2015)

After another month of actual sales, I’m a lot closer to that island than I was  !

Before I get to this month’s numbers, a quick correction from last month. I reported $25.80 for my total sales and reads for AoP in September. While doing the October calcs, I found a typo in my formula in Excel where I converted currencies.  The actual amount should have been $27.48.

Sales for October (AoP sales/borrows are 10/1 through 10/31. Rise sales/borrows are 9/28 through 10/31. Also, note that the pages read and the quantity sold are hard numbers but the money is soft since there are conversion rates and other factors that I'm estimating.):

Abuse of Power - 5 sales, 2398 pages read (best guess — 19 unique readers), 1090 free books downloaded = $21.00

That’s only $6.48 under my first month — a fantastic result! More on this later.

That brings my total "profit" on the novella to -$290.54.

At this point, I think it’s highly unlikely that the novella will ever make it to the plus side, especially considering that I plan to eventually convert it to permafree.  Overall, though, I’m pleased with it.  It’s gotten me a very positive response, and it’s useful as a promotion tool.  I’m going to run a $.99 promo this month to try to nail down some idea as to sell through percentage, so next month I should hopefully have some idea of how useful it is.  I will say that the main problem with the book is the cover.  Don’t get me wrong; I love it and think that my cover artist did exactly what I wanted.  The problem is that what I told her to create was just stupid.  The cover absolutely does not say either epic fantasy or fantasy romance.  I’m not sure, though, if it’s worth it, either in terms of time or money, to change at this point.

Rise of the Mages — 151 sales, 141,281 pages read = $1235.19

My over/under last month was $150.  I’m close to 10x that number.  I’m am absolutely ecstatic with those results. Over the moon! Just wow!

That brings my total "profit" on the novel to -$192.00.

I didn’t expect to break even on the novel until the second or third book was out.  Now, I have a chance of doing so next month (and that’s counting spending another $150 in October to fix some stuff). I honestly have no idea what prompted so much success. The free promo for AoP surely had to help, but my only theory is that the combination of my cover, pitch, and sample are solid.

One negative was review star rating, which is only averaging a little above 3.6 — pretty low for Amazon.  So do my high sales despite low review ratings mean that reviews aren’t all that important?  Maybe it’s important to have reviews, regardless of what the reviews say?  Or perhaps, it’s that the content of the reviews really only indicate one big negative while saying overall positive stuff about the rest of the reading experience?  No idea.

Some other big positives:

- Reads and sales of AoP were much higher than I expected.  Much, much, much higher.  One explanation is that Amazon’s algorithm’s placed the novella higher on the “also bought” list because Rise did so well.  I think a more probable explanation (or that’s what I’m hoping anyway  ) is that readers liked Rise so much that they found AoP and read it.
- 10 new mailing list signups (3 from ARC reviewers, and 7 organic).  I consider this a fantastic result.  My biggest goal is to get 2000 people like this on my mailing list, and this is a great start.

I also had some more production costs (AoP promo - $40.50 for 1090 downloads, Repulsive cover, aforementioned changes to Rise).

Total spent on becoming a self-published author: $2179.03

Total money made thus far off writing: $1316.03

Total Profit: -$-863.00

Wow! One month can really turn things around.

Lessons Learned:

Feedback from readers is absolutely gold.  If you want to write books that readers want to read, them telling you what you did right and wrong is the best possible source of critique.

Promos work.  I can only think that giving away AoP had to help boost me.

Expected Sales for November:

My spot on the Hot New Releases chart expired on 10/28, so I’ve had four days of sales and reads to see the “cliff.”  I’m still averaging one sale and 2500 page reads a day.  Not counting any bump for my promo, that gives me about $16/day or around $500 for the month as the ceiling.  As a floor, I’d say a minimum of either one read or one sale a day would give me around $3/day or, say, $100 for the month.  Therefore, I’ll set the over/under at $300 (though I’d consider that number a bit high).


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## Caged Maiden (Nov 2, 2015)

wow, this is great!  I'd be over the moon too!

I applaud your organization.  I always think I'll remember things, but then I never do, so sometimes I don't write things down that I should.  I think if I publish, I'll need to make sure I have a good system for tracking expenses and earnings, because I run a few businesses right now, and keeping books can be daunting.

Thanks for sharing, this is wonderful news.  I'm really happy for you.  I hope the ball keeps rolling.


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 3, 2015)

Caged Maiden said:


> I applaud your organization.  I always think I'll remember things, but then I never do, so sometimes I don't write things down that I should.  I think if I publish, I'll need to make sure I have a good system for tracking expenses and earnings, because I run a few businesses right now, and keeping books can be daunting.



The first month, doing this wasn't that fun.  This past month, however ... much much more entertaining 



> I hope the ball keeps rolling.



I've never considered myself a pessimist, but I keep expecting the bottom to drop out because indie author's first books aren't supposed to do well.  So far in Nov, though, I'm still getting 1-2 sales per day and my page reads are still in the 2000/day range.


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## danr62 (Nov 3, 2015)

Awesome, BW! Sounds like you're off to a great start.

You've got me wondering about something. Right now you have two "points of entry" to your series. Readers can either pick up the main book or the prequel novella, and then read the other afterward. If you write more books to follow up the main book, you'll probably sell to a large number of your current readers, but it won't act as another "point of entry". 

Of course people browsing Amazon might see it and go looking for the earlier books. But what happens if you create a 2nd prequel novella, maybe focusing on a different character's backstory or something like that? Now you have 3 points of entry to your series. Would that help your sales and visibility more than writing a sequel?


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 4, 2015)

Dan,



> Right now you have two "points of entry" to your series. Readers can either pick up the main book or the prequel novella, and then read the other afterward. If you write more books to follow up the main book, you'll probably sell to a large number of your current readers, but it won't act as another "point of entry".
> 
> Of course people browsing Amazon might see it and go looking for the earlier books. But what happens if you create a 2nd prequel novella, maybe focusing on a different character's backstory or something like that? Now you have 3 points of entry to your series. Would that help your sales and visibility more than writing a sequel?



From a pure logic standpoint, this suggestion sounds like it makes a lot of sense.  From a "the advice experienced indie authors are giving" standpoint, however, that isn't how it works (that's not how any of this works  ).

Everything I've read says that sales take off when you a) promote your first book in a series at a discount b) build your email list and c) release the third book in a series.

I don't feel qualified to answer fully (beyond pure speculation) as to why that approach works better than what you're suggesting, but the advice to focus on getting the series completed seems pretty much universal.

That being said, I'm not exactly following that advice fully.  My next release is actually the first book in a new series in a completely different subgenre.  According to all the advice I read, starting that new series in a new subgenre instead of continuing my series is a pretty idiotic move.


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## danr62 (Nov 4, 2015)

Your current series seems to be doing pretty well. Better than you expected. Wouldn't it make more sense to continue that series? Yeah, you might be able to write another series that has more mass appeal, but there's no guarantee of that, even if you do follow all the advice for popular fiction. 

Yes, there is a good chance that your new series would do well, possibly even much better. I'm not saying don't do it. But I am suggesting that you don't leave your current series hanging for too long to make it happen.

As to my previous post, isn't the advice that the put the heavy promotion on discount book sites to the first book or prequel book in a series? I'm just musing that another prequel might give you something else to promote as heavily.


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## PaulineMRoss (Nov 4, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> I've never considered myself a pessimist, but I keep expecting the bottom to drop out because indie author's first books aren't supposed to do well.  So far in Nov, though, I'm still getting 1-2 sales per day and my page reads are still in the 2000/day range.



Brian, I'm so pleased that it's gone so well for you. It means that you will have a reservoir of fans ready and waiting for whatever you put out next. Don't worry too much about the mailing list, either - Amazon's new 'Follow' option means that a lot of readers stay in touch that way. Amazon will put out an email to tell them about your new release a couple of weeks after it goes live, and - bingo! A nice little bump in sales.  I got about 80 sales that way for my last book.


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 4, 2015)

> Your current series seems to be doing pretty well. Better than you expected. Wouldn't it make more sense to continue that series?



Dan,

It absolutely would.  I agree with the advice that says that starting a new series in a new subgenre is a pretty idiotic move.

Before I explain why I'm doing something so stupid, a quick clarification: I'm not stopping the current series (which is what it sounded like in my previous email); I'm alternating books - Primary series book 1, secondary series book 1, primary series book 2, secondary series book 2, etc.

The reason is twofold: One, as I finished my massive 120k first novel, I found the thought of writing the sequel quite daunting.  I thought, "Hmmm. What if I write a shorter book in another series as sort of a palate cleanser?"  I'm nearing completion of that shorter book, and at this point, I'm pretty excited about finishing it and starting on the sequel to my primary series.

I'm also treating this whole writing thing as a learning experience at the moment.  What I'm finding thus far is that getting reader feedback is helping me become better as a writer.  It seems to me that I'll learn more from feedback on two separate series than I  will from one, and the quicker I learn, the better.



> As to my previous post, isn't the advice that the put the heavy promotion on discount book sites to the first book or prequel book in a series? I'm just musing that another prequel might give you something else to promote as heavily.



It does, but I'm not sure that prequels, especially novellas, are as easy to sell (or even give away) as first books.  Don't get me wrong; I'm glad that I have AoP to promote as it gives me the opportunity to learn a lot more about promotion before I begin in earnest with RotM.  On the other hand, I'm not sure exactly how effective these promos are, and I'm not sure that AoP will ever earn back what I've invested in it.


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 4, 2015)

> Brian, I'm so pleased that it's gone so well for you.



Me, too! Thanks!



> It means that you will have a reservoir of fans ready and waiting for whatever you put out next.



I'm really hoping that this is the case.

You saw huge jumps from your first book to your second to your third.  Since I started out at an elevated level, I'm not sure I should have the same expectations or not.



> Don't worry too much about the mailing list, either - Amazon's new 'Follow' option means that a lot of readers stay in touch that way. Amazon will put out an email to tell them about your new release a couple of weeks after it goes live, and - bingo! A nice little bump in sales.  I got about 80 sales that way for my last book.



80! That's fantastic!  Good show old chap. (Hoping you found my use of a traditional British phrase funny instead of potentially offensive  )

Is there any way to tell how many people have followed you?

While this feature is handy, I still think that an email list is worth pursuing.  For one thing, I'm not sure I'll stay in select permanently, and I don't want to be completely reliant on Amazon for selling.  Additionally, building my list aggressively through ads has the potential of bringing me brand new customers.

Thank you again for all your advice and support.  I am positive that RotM would not be doing nearly as well if you hadn't pointed me toward kboards.

Brian

EDIT: In fact, I'm so thankful of your help that I'd love to do something for you.  Let me know when you're running a promo, and I'll announce it in my monthly email newsletter.  My newsletter is pretty small, but maybe it'll help some?


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## PaulineMRoss (Nov 4, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> You saw huge jumps from your first book to your second to your third.  Since I started out at an elevated level, I'm not sure I should have the same expectations or not.



I think the second and third books make a huge difference. Whatever level you start at, each successive book is likely to bump things up a notch. Whenever you're on Kboards, keep an eye on Angela Holder's thread. She's just released her second in series, after the first went ballistic all by itself. That will give you some indication of what the second book can do.

Interestingly, although I had big jumps from the first book to the second, and then to the third, the fourth hasn't seen the same big jump. It's a more modest incremental increase, which will probably tail off quite quickly.



> 80! That's fantastic!  Good show old chap. (Hoping you found my use of a traditional British phrase funny instead of potentially offensive  )
> 
> Is there any way to tell how many people have followed you?



Not offensive at all.  And no, there seems to be no way to tell. But it seems to be an effective marketing method. For people reading on the Kindle, when you reach the end of a book, you get the option to 'Follow' the author there and then. I'm sure that's where it comes from, because I can't imagine many people finding the 'Follow' button on the author page. I was really surprised how effective it was.

Here's another factoid for you: I've got book 5 on pre-order at the moment, and Amazon has already sent out a couple of emails about it to followers. Each time, I see a blip in pre-orders. So it's VERY effective. I have 75+ pre-orders already, and it's only been available for a couple of weeks.



> While this feature is handy, I still think that an email list is worth pursuing.  For one thing, I'm not sure I'll stay in select permanently, and I don't want to be completely reliant on Amazon for selling.  Additionally, building my list aggressively through ads has the potential of bringing me brand new customers.



I'm not suggesting you ignore the mailing list building - it's the single most powerful promotional tool available to an author. If you have enough engaged readers on your mailing list, you don't need ANY other promotion to boost a new release into the bestseller lists. And you control that, bot Amazon, so it's well worth the effort.

I have to say, though, that my author friends who've increased their mailing lists through giveaways have found that those people are not the most responsive. They tend not to buy later releases, because they were only there for the freebie. 

Here's yet another factoid for you: pre-orders and mailing list signups seem to be (to some extent) mutually exclusive. They're alternative ways for a reader to say: let me know when the next book is out. A friend who stopped doing pre-orders for her series saw a big jump in mailing list signups. So if building the mailing list is a major priority, you might not want to do pre-orders.



> Thank you again for all your advice and support.  I am positive that RotM would not be doing nearly as well if you hadn't pointed me toward kboards.
> EDIT: In fact, I'm so thankful of your help that I'd love to do something for you.  Let me know when you're running a promo, and I'll announce it in my monthly email newsletter.  My newsletter is pretty small, but maybe it'll help some?



You're very kind. I've had a huge amount of help from other self-pubbers, so I'm very happy to pay it forward. I know many Mythic Scribers are not thinking about publication yet, or are committed to pursuing a traditional deal, but even so, I hope all this is of interest to more than just you and me. 

My next promotion is on 14-15 November, when The Mages of Bennamore will be free for the first time. Every bit of extra publicity is helpful, if you want to mention it, I'd appreciate it.


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 4, 2015)

> My next promotion is on 14-15 November, when The Mages of Bennamore will be free for the first time. Every bit of extra publicity is helpful, if you want to mention it, I'd appreciate it.



Unfortunately, I've already sent out an email for November (and at the moment, I'm only doing one per month). Let me know of all future ones, though, and I'll definitely note them!


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## PaulineMRoss (Nov 4, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> Unfortunately, I've already sent out an email for November (and at the moment, I'm only doing one per month). Let me know of all future ones, though, and I'll definitely note them!



Thanks for the thought, anyway. The next promo probably won't be until January, so I'll try and remember to let you know!


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 13, 2015)

Today begins a $0.99 promo period for Abuse of Power.

I've already run a free promo this KDP period, so I can't do a Kindle Countdown (If you're in KDP, Zon allows you to either make the book free for five days or set the book's price below $2.99 for 7 days while still get 70% royalties. You can only take one of these actions each 3-month KDP period.).  So for each sale between now and when I raise the price back up on 11/23, I get, counting the $.06 delivery fee, about $.28 cents per copy.  At regular price, I get about $2.03 per copy sold.  Doing the math, I'd need to sell 7.1x more copies at the lower price to get the same royalties.

So why then am I doing this promo?

Good question!

The 7.1x number doesn't count people who read AoP and go on to buy RotM.  If I sell just one extra copy of AoP and that leads to one more sell of RotM, things are good, right?  But the calcs aren't that simple. To truly find out if I'm making more money by setting AoP to either .99 or permafree eventually, I need to have some idea of the sell through.  That's what this experiment is about.

The idea is to sell a bunch of copies of AoP over the next week and a half, and then watch sales/reads of Rise to see what happens.  I'm investing $33.50 to hopefully get the reduced price of AoP in front of readers.

Note that a positive ROI is not my goal for this promotion.  The goal is data on sell through.  If I sell a bunch of copies, and no one buys Rise, I'll lose money on this deal, but that's okay. $33.50 isn't exactly going to break me if I lose it completely.  The important thing will be that I'll know that promoting AoP doesn't do a lot for me.  On the other hand, my biggest fear is that I don't sell enough copies of AoP to get any good data on the sell through, and that fear is not by any means baseless because:

a) This is not a huge promotion.  I'm only using a few of the smaller sites because I want to do a big free promo for AoP in January and you quickly reach a saturation point if you run the same book on the same sites over and over again.

b) .99 is a hard sell.  People just don't respond to it as well as they do free, especially for a novella.  OTOH, I think a lot of readers are more likely to read a book they paid for than a free book which may languish on their hard drive.

All that being said, details of the promo follow:

Current AoP Ranks and Sales Data -

#245,875 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#1663 in Books > Romance > Fantasy
#2296 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
#2855 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery

Sales so far in November - 1 (Not one a day. One. Total. Yep.)
Pages Read in November - 150

So while I get a random sell/read every now and again, I think we can safely attribute all sells/reads during the upcoming period to the promo.

Current RotM Ranks and Sales Data -

#36,557 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#119 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Teen & Young Adult > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
#134 in Books > Teens > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Coming of Age
#165 in Books > Teens > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery

Sales so far in November - 20
Pages Read in November - 24570

As an average, that's 1.67 sales per day, but sales are actually trending slightly upward over the month (started at mostly 1 a day, moved to mostly 2 a day, last couple of days have been 3 to 4).  That trending may be an aberration, so since any sell through should lag AoP sales, I'll keep my eye on it.  I'm leaning toward attributing an average over the 1.5 to 2 range to sell through.

The average pages read is around 2050 per day, but that quantity is trending the opposite direction of sales - a slow average decline.  Over the first week of the month, it bounced back and forth over the 2500 pages per day line.  Now, it's hovering more around the 1500 range.  My inclination is to attribute any average above the 1500 to 1750 range to sell through, but I'll keep watching it for a few days.

Promo Details -

New price with no advertising $0 11/13 thru 11/15
Bknights	$5.50 11/16/15
Betty book freak $8.00 11/17/15
Sweet free books $5.00 11/18/15
Reading Deals	 $15.00 11/17 - 11/19
Read Cheaply	$0.00 11/17 - 11/20
New price with no advertising $0 11/21 thru 11/22

My plan is to do a results post on 11/30, hopefully giving me enough time to see any sell through results.


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## danr62 (Nov 14, 2015)

I guess with KU it's harder to track sell through rate than it used to be.

Good luck on the promo!

I recently read AoP and am slowly making my way through Rise. I'm working a bunch of overtime right now so not much time for reading. Anyway, I like it so far.

I'm curious about your strategy with AoP because it's not a true prequel, just the first few chapters of the book. Do you get any negative feedback about that? Is it a strategy that's recommended a lot over on KB?


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## PaulineMRoss (Nov 15, 2015)

One small point, Brian - if you're in the 35% royalty range (by manually setting the price to 99c rather than using a Countdown), you don't pay the delivery charge. So you're making 34c per sale.


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 16, 2015)

Dan,



> I recently read AoP and am slowly making my way through Rise. I'm working a bunch of overtime right now so not much time for reading. Anyway, I like it so far.



Thanks! I really appreciate you doing that!



> I'm curious about your strategy with AoP because it's not a true prequel, just the first few chapters of the book.



You kinda lost me here.

A prequel, by the definition I'm using, is a story set in the same world as the series that features some of the same characters and takes place prior to the events of start of the main series.  Both Wheel of Time and Sword of Truth had prequels published that followed that basic concept.

Therefore, Abuse of Power is a prequel.

I think that you're confused.  The chapters at the back of the book are simply the first several chapters of Rise of the Mages. I called that a Sneak Preview.

I think having that was a lot more effective for me prior to RotM being published.  I'm going to update it prior to my next promo and put a Sneak Preview for Repulsive.



> Do you get any negative feedback about that? Is it a strategy that's recommended a lot over on KB?



I have not gotten any negative feedback.  Some people think that sneak previews help, and others don't bother.  Truthfully, I have no idea how effective it is.  From the KENP, I do know that a small percentage of readers (10-20%?) read all the way through the Sneak Preview.  My guess is that readers who make it all the way through are more likely to buy RotM as well, so at worst, I don't think including it hurts anything.


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 16, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> One small point, Brian - if you're in the 35% royalty range (by manually setting the price to 99c rather than using a Countdown), you don't pay the delivery charge. So you're making 34c per sale.



Good to know. I only need to sell 5.9x as many books to make the same $.

Sweet!

I'm in the money. I'm in the money.


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## danr62 (Nov 16, 2015)

Well, I went and downloaded AoP again, and cleared the "furthest page read".

When I opened it up, it brought me to the cover of RotM, so it seems that you may have marked the sneak preview as the starting point of the book. I can now see that I completey missed the prequel part of the book.


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 16, 2015)

Dan,

That's odd.  I haven't had anyone else point out that issue, and I just opened it in my Kindle App (I downloaded it for free during my last promo b/c ... why not?).  Mine opened up to the start of the novella.

Weird.


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## danr62 (Nov 16, 2015)

Huh, yeah, that is weird

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 19, 2015)

I’ve been thinking a lot about my goals, where I am, and where I need to go.

What I’ve discovered about my writing progress is that it is very cyclical.  From when I started 4 and a half years ago through now, I go through periods of high productivity followed by periods of little to no productivity.  If I want to be a successful author, I’m going to have to become more consistent.

On the positive side, though, I’ve seen some good signs lately (as I’m now securely out of a recent valley):  a) I’m getting more done during my high productivity periods due to improved efficiency, b) my latest low point was shorter than previous ones, and c) I still got some stuff done during the low period instead of abandoning writing completely.

Positives aside, though, I’ve got to get better if I’m going to meet my goals. Just take a look at my proposed release schedule:

1	9/1/2015	Abuse of Power

No promo. Sales very low.

2	10/1/2015	Rise of the Mages

Promo’d AoP freedays. Sales way exceeded expectations.

3	1/1/2016	Repulsive

Free AoP promo planned. Intend to update back matter of both AoP and RotM to advertise Repulsive. I’m on track to meet this publication date, though it’s taken me more time than I had hoped. I’m very interested to see how this one performs. I’d be thrilled with a similar number of sales and reads as RotM.

4	4/1/2016	Man in White Prequel Novella?

On one hand, I have no confidence in novellas, and I’m not sure that taking time away from writing my main series is a good idea. On the other hand:

- The plan is to tie this into the Rise series.
- I’d like to keep my Amazon publisher cred momentum rolling.
- My strategy at the moment is to not publicize a book when it premieres.  Instead, I promo the previous/first book in the series. That’s a strong tactic. Some people, however, believe that pushing a new release heavily is a good idea. It would be interesting to experiment with that, and this novella would be a good test subject. Plus, I’m sure Ankari would love the promo this would give his anthology 

I’m still considering this one. I’m going to spend late December and all of January working on Gryphon.  It that goes well, I may see how this one comes together.

5	7/1/2016	???

The goal is to publish a title every three months, but realistically, I just don’t think it’s going to happen. The only way to meet this aggressive schedule of having Rise 3 complete by 4/1/17 is to have both Gryphon and Attractive complete by mid September at the latest.  I don’t think I can do that and devote time to publishing two novellas.

6	10/1/2016	Gryphon (Rise 2)

This gives me 9 and a half months to bang this thing out. That’s pretty realistic if I don’t hit more than one long or two short low periods.

Promo RotM at a temporary price reduction to $2.99.  Not really planning an all out blitz, though.

7	1/1/2017	Attractive (Repulsive 2)

Since this series is only slated to be a trilogy, I’ll promote Repulsive fairly heavily here and discount down to $.99.

8	4/1/2017	Rise 3

Here’s where things get fun. Everything I’ve read is that the 3rd book in a series is the one with the potential for sales to take off, so I want to really hit promos hard. Apply for Bookbub. If I get it, offer RotM free. Otherwise, $.99 temp reduction. Raise back permanently to $2.99? Regardless of Bookbub or no, major promo lineup/budget.

9	7/1/2017	Man in White Sequel Novella?

It’s going to be tough getting Rise 3 out on schedule, and there will be no time to finish the Repulsive trilogy. If I publish anything at all here, it will be a short work. Any promos will be dependent on too many variables to discuss here.

10	10/1/2017	Repulsive 3 (last)

Another 3rd book in a trilogy. I’m probably either going to be very happy writer at the end of the calendar year or a very sad one.  Major promo lineup/budget offering book free. Apply for Bookbub obviously. 

11	1/1/2018	Repulsive box set

Promo the heck out of this thing, too.

12	4/1/2018	Rise 4

Another tight date.  Six months is kinda short to release in this series.  I could switch this with the MiW box set (assuming I’ve written it!), but anecdotal evidence is that summer months are actually bad for sales.  I’d rather stick with the major release in April and what I consider a minor one in July.

Promos for this one and the rest of my “scheduled” releases are highly dependent on way too many unknowns at this point.

13	7/1/2018	Man in White Box Set (Rise 4.5)
14	10/1/2018	Rise 5 (last)


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## Russ (Nov 19, 2015)

This is a very good approach.

Whether or not you meet your goals having this kind of plan is very valuable.

I think more authors who want to make money at writing need to prepare plans like this and talk about them.  How do you build a business without benchmarks, goals or a plan?

Keep up the great work.


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 23, 2015)

November AoP Promo Results:

New price with no advertising $0 11/13 thru 11/15 – Total Sales/Reads 4/110

Wow! 4 copies sold with no advertising at all.  That was an unexpected result.  Instead of 1 sale/12 days, I got 4 sales/3 days.  That’s 16 times as many sales.  I only needed 5.9x to break even, so a little more than double the actual dollars not even counting any potential for sell through.  These results are very preliminary, of course, but I think the lower price point is something that I seriously need to consider.

Ranks on the morning of 11/15:
#158,242 Paid in Kindle Store
#1113 in Books > Romance > Fantasy
#1707 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
#2096 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery

Doesn’t take much to rise 100,000 places in the Paid Kindle Store 

Bknights $5.50 11/16/15 - Total Sales/Reads 0/0

That’s disappointing. BKnights is generally considered to be one of the better value propositions in the promo world.  On the other hand, many people have noted that the service works a lot better for free than for $.99.  

The good thing is that Bknights always refunds your money if you fail to get sales, so the cost of this one is zero’d out.  I’ll used the Fiverr credit for the promotion that I plan to run in January.

#209,246 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#1416 in Books > Romance > Fantasy
#2035 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
#2544 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery

And it doesn’t take much to fall 50,000 places 

Betty book freak $8.00 11/17/15
Reading Deals $15.00 11/17 - 11/19
Read Cheaply $0.00 11/17 - 11/20 – Total Sales/Reads 4/0

Yay! Actual sales from a promotion.  Of course, I just paid $23 to get make $1.38, so maybe I shouldn’t be celebrating too much. At this point, the promo is looking like a total bust.

#74,464 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#541 in Books > Romance > Fantasy
#1063 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
#1260 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery

Wow, that’s quite a jump, but it’s still not really high enough to generate a lot of traffic on its own.  

Sweet free books $5.00 11/18/15 – Total Sales/Reads 1/0

I think we can officially call the a bust now as I have no more sites lined up.

#65,961 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#459 in Books > Romance > Fantasy
#979 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
#1164 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery

New price with no advertising $0 11/19 to 11/22 - Total Sales/Reads 0/0

#102,075 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#748 in Books > Romance > Fantasy
#1289 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery
#1543 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Sword & Sorcery

CONCLUSION:

Ouch.  Over the entire promotion period, I sold 9 books and got no page reads.  That number, however, counts 4 sales that happened before I ever ran any promotions.  I have no idea where those sales came from, either.  Regardless, basically, I spent $28 to make 5*$.34 = $1.73.  That’s -$26.27.

Sales of RotM have been solid through the period (with page reads steadily declining), but considering how few sales of AoP I got, I can’t credit any of continued success to sell through.

LESSONS LEARNED:

- It’s a lot harder to sell a book for .99 than it is to give it away.
- Successful promos work by selling enough books for the Amazon algos to kick in.  If you’re giving away books, maybe a $30-$40 budget makes sense. If you’re trying to sell a book, maybe you should go big or stay at home.
- Promoing a book that has a huge flaw (cover) and is a hard sell in the first place (novella) probably isn’t a great idea.


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## BWFoster78 (Nov 25, 2015)

This is my last post on this thread for a while.  To anyone who finds it in the future, I hope that you get out of it that you absolutely can succeed financially in writing. Pauline is doing it. Greg is doing it. I'm on my way to doing it.

Writing is not a get rich quick scheme. Heck, it may not even be a get rich at all scheme. But don't let anyone tell you that you can't do it. If you have a dream and are willing to work hard, I believe in you.

If you ever need anything, my email address is [email protected]

Don't hesitate to ask.


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## PaulineMRoss (Nov 26, 2015)

BWFoster78 said:


> Writing is not a get rich quick scheme. Heck, it may not even be a get rich at all scheme. But don't let anyone tell you that you can't do it. If you have a dream and are willing to work hard, I believe in you.



Thanks for all the information, Brian. There's no substitute for hard data from those who are already published. 

To emphasize the point that it takes time to build a writing career, one book at a time, here are my average daily royalties by number of books:

1 book out: $2/day
2 books out: $20/day
3 books out: $44/day
4 books out: $52/day {so far; I expect this to drop somewhat before book 5 is out}

Obviously, it isn't realistic to expect this to increase indefinitely, and there are daily/weekly/monthly ups and downs, but overall, it's fair to say that the more books you have out, the greater the earning potential. With the usual caveat: every author is different, writing to a different genre, etc, etc. I have no idea whether my results are typical or not. I know people who have far more books published and make less than this, and others who've made way more with their first book. So actual results may vary. But making money IS possible.


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## Caged Maiden (Nov 26, 2015)

Hi Brian, I can't thank you enough for disclosing your business plans and data.  It's really nice to see an honest evaluation of your efforts and what one can realistically expect from certain strategies.  I have one question, and I'll try to keep it brief, but you know me...I'm sort of wordy.

Okay, so I'm an artist and sort of inconsistent (if I'm being totally honest), and I always have been.  I've run my own small business as a costumer for years, but I never meant it as a real business, just as a hobby business that would net me enough spare cash to justify the money I spend on personal hobbies like sword-fighting and archery, and the materials I have to buy to continue to make my own stuff.  It simply wasn't something I planned to ever be successful, and my business is all 100% word of mouth, but it kept me busy enough that I never needed to advertise.  

Writing is very different, in that you spend a lot of time up front, writing the novels, and then you have a finished product that you continuously promote and offer in the future (opposite to costuming, where I take on new projects, complete them, and then look for the next).

My husband is my polar opposite.  Where I'm disorganized and inconsistent, he's an intrepid planner and works toward goals in a way I can't easily mimic.  He's offered to make my spreadsheets and basically chart and track anything I need as I move toward self-publishing as you have done, but I'm not sure what data he needs to effectively track anything. So on to my question:

Is there anything that comes to mind, now that you're further along in this process, that you wished you charted better or tracked more thoroughly at the beginning? I guess my concern is that when I buy fabric, I don't delegate which bits are going to what projects, so I tend to later give a price quote to a client on a particular project, regardless of what I spent on materials in the past.  I'm sure I never lose money because the materials are less than 15% of the overall price (the rest is labor), and since writing is so different, I want to be sure I'm being honest and accurate as I journey forth into uncharted terrain.

I know you're a more analytical person, so I imagine you had a good plan when you began selling books and running promotions, but I wonder whether there's anything you wish you might have kept better track of, or whether there's anything you undervalued or overestimated based on your initial assessments, but for which you have now realized a more accurate figure.

Hope that makes sense.  If it doesn't, I'll try to be more clear.  I guess I'm just looking for what data I need to start tracking right away, and what comparables I should keep in mind before I publish, so I can most accurately keep track of sales in the future (like differentiating between free downloads, free copies given for reviews, or whether there is any difference between those things at all).  

I tested out an editor last week and was pretty disappointed with the sample, but I'm prepared to spend about $2500 on editing, and about $200-$400 on a cover, but are there other significant costs I should expect regarding publishing that are more hidden? Is there a sort of place where you should begin putting things into a spreadsheet?  Like just when they cost you money, or should time be also a factor when you're keeping track of what works and what doesn't?

Thanks again for sharing all your information with us.  It's nice to read the inside scoop of a writer's journey through the beginning of self-publishing, because it doesn't really help to compare apples to golf balls (newly self-published vs. the $.99 Amazon millionaires from five years ago, or self-publishers in the first year vs. traditional publishers in their same year).

I appreciate your time.


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## Caged Maiden (Nov 26, 2015)

Pauline, thanks for clarifying your particular results and your earnings broken down in days.  That's amazingly helpful.

I'm sure you did that to be brief, but I had a question to clarify something:

Do you think it's directly reflective of simply how many books you have available to readers, or was there also a component of business growth to account for the rapid increase in income?  I wondered which other variables you could argue made a difference.  As in, did you see that jump just because you had more titles available when you were advertising the same as always, or did you with each new release add some level of advertising, free promotion, hiring better editors as your income increased, etc.?

I really appreciate your constant feedback on this thread, and I just wanted to understand not only how much of an increase you say with each new title, but also try to understand whether there were other elements in play that added to those statistics. This is the hardest thing for me to plan.  Like, I have shorts I could publish now, but I don't think they'd even scratch the surface of building a career, but I also don't want to put out three titles next year just to try to earn a better wage like you have, if I'm missing the bigger picture of what it actually takes to grow your business.  Hope that makes sense.

I really look up to you and how you've managed to succeed, but I know there's always a deeper reason for anyone who's successful, beyond just writing a good book and hoping readers discover it. I guess that's the part that's the most mysterious to me.  Thanks for sharing your personal business statistics with us!


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## PaulineMRoss (Nov 27, 2015)

Caged Maiden said:


> Do you think it's directly reflective of simply how many books you have available to readers, or was there also a component of business growth to account for the rapid increase in income?  I wondered which other variables you could argue made a difference.  As in, did you see that jump just because you had more titles available when you were advertising the same as always, or did you with each new release add some level of advertising, free promotion, hiring better editors as your income increased, etc.?



The big difference, between book 1 and book 2, was that I discovered promotion! So it went like this:

1 book out: $2/day {no promotion to start with, then a very little dabbling}
2 books out: $20/day {a big promotion to launch book 2, which was very successful}
3 books out: $44/day {a big promotion to launch book 3, plus promo on both the other books - even more successful}
4 books out: $52/day {same as for book 3 BUT not so successful; a later promo campaign was more successful}

So promotion is necessary (for me, at any rate) to get a new book off the ground, but after that each additional book means that the base line numbers settle a little higher each time.

Some people are able to sell right out of the gate. Brian's book has done amazingly well, which augurs really well for whenever he gets more books out.



> I really appreciate your constant feedback on this thread, and I just wanted to understand not only how much of an increase you say with each new title, but also try to understand whether there were other elements in play that added to those statistics. This is the hardest thing for me to plan.  Like, I have shorts I could publish now, but I don't think they'd even scratch the surface of building a career, but I also don't want to put out three titles next year just to try to earn a better wage like you have, if I'm missing the bigger picture of what it actually takes to grow your business.  Hope that makes sense.



I think Brian's threads have summed up the necessary steps to make money from this game: write to market; write in series; write/publish fast; promote. And in certain genres (like romance) it may not even be necessary to promote.

But most of us can't be that hard-nosed about it. I write the books I want to read, and I write as fast as I write, and I don't see that changing any time soon. They don't sell well without promotion, but they DO sell, and when people find them, they tend to read them all the way through and they often go on to buy the others, too. So they're not a runaway success, but there's something there I can build on.

I should perhaps add: although the money sounds impressive, that $52 a day that's been coming in is only around $1500 a month, and I'm still in the red for the setup costs of these books (covers, proofreading, etc). And that's continuous and ongoing. This month I've had beta reading costs for book 5, next month there are proofreading costs, and in January I get the cover art for book 6. I'm starting work on a new series (Regency romance) to be published in maybe a year's time, and I'm already spending on it, buying books for research. There is no end to it!



> I really look up to you and how you've managed to succeed, but I know there's always a deeper reason for anyone who's successful, beyond just writing a good book and hoping readers discover it. I guess that's the part that's the most mysterious to me.  Thanks for sharing your personal business statistics with us!



I don't think of myself as successful (yet!), but I know what you mean. The best advice I can give you is not to spend too much time planning. The very best way to learn how the business operates is to go out there and publish something. If you have shorts you could publish now, then why not go ahead and publish one or two? You won't make much money from it (shorts are not big sellers, unless they're erotica), but the experience will be invaluable. You can always unpublish later, or group them into a box set or some such. But better to practice with something like that than something really precious.

Good luck, and feel free to ask whatever you want. You (and anyone else) can email me at pmross AT paulinemross.co.uk any time.


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## Malik (Jun 17, 2016)

This has been a fantastic thread. Thank you, Brian. It's been elucidating. Thank you, all.

So, here's how I'm doing this. I think. 

First off, I'm using my kitty money -- money from horsetrading hot rod parts and playing the occasional gig -- for this, so it's not a hit to my actual savings. This is my new hobby, that's all. If I don't make any money, I'm really not that worried about it; I just want to write. This will cut into my Scotch budget for the next few months, however.

The majority of the money goes to my editor. 

I've read enough juvenile pap (looking at you, SmashWords) in the past few years while getting a bead on the market -- and seen some of it sell head-scramblingly well -- to realize that editing is crucial to get anything to stand out, so I will spare no expense here. I'd spend ten grand on editing if I had it. People enjoy shiny things.

On that, I bought a pre-made cover and spent a bit more to have a graphic artist I know punch it up a bit and set the text. I'm very happy with it so far. Again: shiny things. The money I saved here over a major-league custom cover is going to promo.

I'm planning a month-long blog and podcast tour to coincide with the initial release, tentatively scheduled for 30 September. I plan on doing KDP and SW, skipping KDP-S. This is primarily because I don't want to spend the cash on ISBNs; they're free with SW. I'd rather put that money into promo.

That ISBN money buys an additional, massive, one-week promo push (see?) of excerpts and blurbs and a customized promo art banner, plus a Twitter and email blast to a separate and very large list, right out of the gate. 

I'm thinking the book will be free for the first five days, or maybe $1.99 with a countdown. 

I have never bought a $.99 book in my life; the $.99 section seems to be the storm drain of self-published fantasy and it's really hard to find good stuff at that price. It's in there, but man, the more you pay, the better the writing gets. It just does. I'd buy and read a $5.99 book before I'd buy and read a $.99 book. But then, I'm an elitist prick and I like pretty words.

I hope to have Book II out around this time in 2017. My goal is to keep digging through my Boxes of Worldbuilding and knocking out one book a year. Because, new hobby.

Of course, no plan survives contact with the enemy. We'll just see how things go. But even a bad plan is better than no plan. I'm open to suggestions.


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## skip.knox (Jun 18, 2016)

OK, fwiw, ymmv, take it or leave it, and other admonitions.

If you have shorter works, start your editor search with those. I have so far hired two editors, one on a short story and the other on a novella. Both were a waste of money. The one started but never finished, and so I paid only the up-front money. The other gave me only empty advice and corrections of middling value. Not worth the few hundred bucks. I have a novel in progress and would have been aggrieved and furious if I had spent thousands rather than hundreds. 

Finding a good editor is tough. And slow. So, if you have something short (= affordable), you might consider using that to shop editors.


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## Malik (Jun 18, 2016)

So, disregard some of my previous post. Smashwords discourages use of its free ISBN on other sites. 

EDIT 2: Not that it matters, as Amazon doesn't require ISBNs.


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## Russ (Jun 19, 2016)

Malik said:


> So, disregard some of my previous post. Smashwords discourages use of its free ISBN on other sites.
> 
> EDIT 2: Not that it matters, as Amazon doesn't require ISBNs.



You may wish to keep in mind that some professional organizations (that can and will help you promote and network) require your book to have an ISBN for you to join.

You may want to decide which organizations of that nature you want to join before you make the at decision.


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## Malik (Jun 19, 2016)

Good to know. Thanks.

Are you thinking of SWFA, et al? May God smite me with the problem of being eligible to join SFWA without having an ISBN.


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## Russ (Jun 20, 2016)

Malik said:


> Good to know. Thanks.
> 
> Are you thinking of SWFA, et al? May God smite me with the problem of being eligible to join SFWA without having an ISBN.



IT was not SWFA but they could be on that list as well.

I was actually remembering your comment about how your book is really a thriller with a portal entry.  My wife is publishing her first thriller and I put together a list of the organizations I thought she should join and sent them to her.   IT was a couple of those that I think required as ISBN number to join.


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## Malik (Jul 26, 2016)

Screw it. I bought a brick of ISBNs, started a publishing company, and got a separate business license and bank account for it. No half measures.


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## Chessie (Jul 27, 2016)

Malik said:


> Screw it. I bought a brick of ISBNs, started a publishing company, and got a separate business license and bank account for it. No half measures.


Yes! I've seen you over on Kboards, too. 

This is the route I took except for that I haven't gotten the ISBNs just yet. Been saving up for a couple of really nice covers come late fall. Anyway, I hope your launch goes really well! If you have any questions or need extra support, feel free to PM me. I belong to a private Indie publishing group as well on Facebook if you require extra resources.


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## Malik (Jul 27, 2016)

I'm pretty sure the KBoards moderators are going to leave a horse's head in my bed. PM inbound.


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## Malik (Jul 27, 2016)

I have not ruled out the possibility that I'll do all of this and my novel actually sucks.


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