My keys to future success

[BWFoster78]

As I approach the transition from "aspiring author" to having something actually up for sale on Amazon, I've been thinking, and reading, a lot about how to achieve success. To be clear, what I'm writing below is what I think is the key for me and is not meant to imply a prescriptive path for anyone else. Feel free to comment on my keys or share what you think your keys are.

First, one must define "success."

On the highest level, "success" for me is having people like my work. Having some of my readers rank any of my works in their favorite top ten is my ultimate goal.

This post, however, is more focused on a secondary, more easily measurable goal - money. I think I'd consider an average of $2500 to $3000 total per month spread over 5 to 10 novels to be a "success." I truly don't know if that bar is unrealistically high, way too low, or reasonable. I think the ultimate replace-my-day-job-salary amount is more in the realm of a dream than a goal.

Here is what I think my path is to achieve success as a self published author:

Step 1 - Write a book that readers want to read.
Step 2 - Get that book in front of the readers who want to read it.
Step 3 - Go back to Step 1.

That's a great path, but a bit vague and not very actionable as written. Here are what I think the keys are to me walking that path:

1. Perserverence - Ultimately, I'll never achieve success without my butt in a chair producing words on the page (of a novel, preferable, rather than an internet forum ).

2. Write better, faster. I can't take 4 and a half years to produce my next book. I need to write as fast as I can and continue to improve both my craft and storytelling.

3. Use my published works to get feedback. I got caught up for a while on the concept of "good enough." I thought that my future success was largely dependent on the ability of my debut novel to catipult me to great heights. Now, I think that, as long as my first book provides adequate entertainment value for the buck, the important thing is that I get it out there and get feedback on it from real readers.

4. Use the feedback from 3 to make my writing more what the readers want. 1 and 2 are tough, but I understand what I need to do to move forward. This one...not so much. The feedback isn't likely to be that every reader perceives the same thing and states it as, "I loved this. Hated that." If that were the case, I'd simply do more of this and less of that. Simple. Instead, I have to mine each comment for a kernel of truth, be ready to make major changes if needed, but not make any change that will fundamentally undermine what makes my writing uniquely good. And, to figure out how to do that, I...uh, kinda, uh...

5. Experiment with marketing to determine who my readers are, where they hang out, and how best to reach them. I have some definite ideas on how to start this process, and I'll share my experiments with the board.

That's all I got.

Thanks.

Brian

 

[Philip Overby]

Good to spell out your goals. I think this will help motivate you more in some capacity. However, I'll offer some thoughts that may or may not set well.

I'd say making 2,500 to 3,000 dollars a month writing books would be awesome. This of course, will take years and years of building up your name to get to this point. If you have 5-10 books out, in order to make that much money a month would probably also require you to spend a certain amount of money on promotion. And that's one thing I'd suggest studying a lot about is how to get your books in front of people that would want to read it. This, sadly, means figuring out where your writing style lies on the fantasy spectrum. Figuring out how to categorize it on Amazon and other sites. Explaining it to book bloggers or people who may want to interview you for podcasts.

I don't suspect the average indie fantasy writer would make as much money as you're suggesting. Maybe I'm way off the mark and there are a lot of indie fantasy writers making this much money a month, but I watched a video once on a guy that wrote erotica (yeah, sorry) and he showed how his titles broke down every month. Since erotica is in huge demand, you made consistent sales every month. He also had 50 or so titles. Some were longer than others, focused in different directions, etc. but he showed that he made about 1,500 a month. So that's just one example of someone having a huge library and how much money he makes. This is also in erotica, which probably gets more impulse buys than any other genre.

One of the biggest ways I've seen indie fantasy writers grow is by doing promotions and giving away their books for free. This gets them a lot more reviews than they might not have gotten otherwise. Reviews, in some ways, are currency. They show that "Hey, people read this and maybe liked it."

So of course make sure your writing is up to snuff, but I'd highly suggest studying a lot about marketing. Because you can write an awesome book, but if no one has heard about it, then it doesn't matter.

1. Perseverance: Of course this is huge. If you stick with it, you'll get results. You may not get the results you want, but they'll come.

2. Writing better, faster: Another big one. Just from my observations though, it seems you take quite a bit of time putting thought into a lot of the details of your novels. This will maybe be reduced by finding an editor you like and trust that can spin your work into polished gold. I wouldn't suggest spending years trying to figure things out. If you want to get to your next book, you have to let this current one go out in the world.

3. Use published work to get feedback: Ideally, this helps a ton. I've already learned what is working with my Splatter Elf stuff from the reviews I've gotten so far. But I've also learned what might not work as well. This is a pretty big thing to consider once you start finding dedicated fans. This means people who are going to buy whatever you release. Or at least review it. I would also suggest taking any feedback you get from other people. Even if this feedback doesn't make sense or puts you off in some way, it's still valuable in that it may tell you something about what you're doing.

4. Using feedback to make things readers want: This feels kind of weird to me because your feedback is most likely going to be inconsistent. Some readers may like one character's arc, while another reader may hate it. It's going to be hard to keep up with pleasing everyone. The best case would be to do what you do well, um, well and then what you're noticing your not doing as well, work on it more. You can't guarantee everyone that reads your work is going to be a fan for life.

5. Experiment with marketing: OK, so this goes back to what I mentioned before. Focusing heavily on marketing. I seem to think paying for marketing is going to produce your biggest gains. Stuff like BookBub or some other services can get your books in front of tons of strangers.

So maybe I'd suggest having a budget for:

1. Editing
2. Cover Art
3. Marketing

Then you could experiment with changing your budget prices around for each book. Maybe you paid a lot for editing on the first book, but you learned a lot about it, so you can spend less on editing and more on marketing. Something like that.

My experience so far hasn't been overly aggressive. I haven't actually talked about my short story in about a week. However, I'm trying to stay active on my Splatter Elf page, my blog (once a week) and some groups I'm in across the internet. As long as I'm doing short stories, I don't expect huge gains. But I'm hoping once I release a novel, I'll have learned more about what I'm doing that works and what doesn't, so I can put more money into marketing where I think I can place it.

Hope this helps.

(About the monthly earnings, I don't know shit, but I'm just gleaning from the fantasy writers I've talked to that this isn't their reality, although I'm sure that there are those that it is)

 

[Caged Maiden]

Hey, so I just wanted to add a little thing about reviews. They're confusing. I recently spoke to someone who recommended a particular author and her work to me, and when I went to look into the books available, I read the reviews first and haven't had a chance to look further and read any of the openings. One of the things I saw was a huge disparity between reader reviews. It was alarming. One reader would say what an easy read it was and how much she loved the characters and their chemistry, and another reviewer would say how the pace dragged so much by the time the romance was realized she no longer cared because the characters were so underdeveloped and she wasn't even rooting for them to hook up.

My point is, maybe don't base your future stories too much on reviews because you might find yourself in a weird position if you try to analyze them too deeply. There will always be people who fall into the "didn't get it" category and that's nothing to be upset about. The most effective thing I learned about reviews, I learned from Terry Ervin II, who said about his bad reviews (something like), "Sure I post them. This reader obviously didn't get what they thought they were going to get, and they didn't like it. I want future readers to be aware of exactly what my story is about." I thought that was a pretty professional and mature viewpoint--one I hope to also embrace one day. You can't stop the bad reviews from coming, just like you can't assume every review will be good, but by clearly communicating the type of story you're selling, you maximize the opportunity to wow readers who will specifically choose it and hopefully like it more than any random sale.

If you have a solid vision of your style and the types of stories you like to tell, readers will keep with you. If you go down one route with a series and take a sharp turn...you might lose them. I'm not sure how many books you have planned after Rise of the Mages, but I'd suggest keeping a similar tone and using future stand alone novels or a new series to do something drastically different if you so choose. It'll help readers build trust in your series and know what to expect, but also give them something different to sample beyond the first works they enjoyed.

 

[skip.knox]

It's good to have goals. I prefer goals to any notion of "success" because I can always adjust goals. With that in mind, you might set one goal to complete one book. Another would be to get the cover, editing, etc. Another would be to make a thousand dollars. Period. Another would be to write a second book, a third, usw. Then a goal of a steady stream of a hundred dollars a month, then 200, etc.

The great thing about setting those goals is that you can hit more than just one. Or, as I think I've quoted here before: to be sure of hitting your target, just shoot; whatever you hit, call that the target.

Anyway, my own path to fortune and glory, kid, is to have two works to give away. The first is publicly free. The second is free to those who sign up for my mailing list. Only with the third do I try to sell. Then a fourth to show that I'm not a one-shot wonder. And probably another free story to give away as a bonus to the Faithful at some point.

That means five complete works--including cover art and editing. I'm working on it. I have that many stories and more, they just ain't all written yet. Details. It's not just the Devil who lives there, it's the entire Hordes of Hell.

 

[Philip Overby]

Hey, so I just wanted to add a little thing about reviews. They're confusing. I recently spoke to someone who recommended a particular author and her work to me, and when I went to look into the books available, I read the reviews first and haven't had a chance to look further and read any of the openings. One of the things I saw was a huge disparity between reader reviews. It was alarming. One reader would say what an easy read it was and how much she loved the characters and their chemistry, and another reviewer would say how the pace dragged so much by the time the romance was realized she no longer cared because the characters were so underdeveloped and she wasn't even rooting for them to hook up.

I think this is what I was also touching on above. If you base too much of your future work on reader opinions, you're in for a long haul. Like anything else, I'd glean from reviews what helps you and try not to dwell too much on other stuff. For example, if one of your big worries was character development and multiple reviews mention the characters feel underdeveloped, that may be something to consider. It can be one of those going down the rabbit hole kind of things trying to figure out which comments helped and which didn't. However, I do think reviews can be a great way to get feedback, it just depends on how many you're dealing with.

 

[Russ]

There is some great advice in this thread.

I think setting goals is crucial, but very hard to do in the indie publishing world. Benchmarks are almost non-existent.

I am lucky that a good friend of mine has just put out his debut novel with a non big five publisher and is very kindly sharing his ongoing numbers with me, and I am thinking of using them as a benchmark, even though it is a different genre and he has an outstanding platform.

But now the son-of-a-gun is doing really well, moving the mark up pretty high for me.

Any info on how people benchmark in the indy world is really valuable.

 

[cupiscent]

You can't stop the bad reviews from coming, just like you can't assume every review will be good, but by clearly communicating the type of story you're selling, you maximize the opportunity to wow readers who will specifically choose it and hopefully like it more than any random sale.

Nora Jemisin said something similar in a great blog post back in the mists of time about author training through careful analysis of reader reviews. She lays out how, through measuring what the reader wanted against what you wanted to do, you can find areas where you can strengthen your writing. I've found it a really useful viewpoint just dealing with critiques and feedback.

 

[BWFoster78]

Nora Jemisin said something similar in a great blog post back in the mists of time about author training through careful analysis of reader reviews. She lays out how, through measuring what the reader wanted against what you wanted to do, you can find areas where you can strengthen your writing. I've found it a really useful viewpoint just dealing with critiques and feedback.

Cupiscent,

Interesting article. Thanks for sharing it.

Brian

 

[BWFoster78]

Philip,

I don't suspect the average indie fantasy writer would make as much money as you're suggesting. Maybe I'm way off the mark and there are a lot of indie fantasy writers making this much money a month,

As Russ said, part of the problem with being an indie writer is that there are no good benchmarks. I literally have no idea if the $$$ that I mentioned is attainable or pie in the sky. I do plan on sharing my experience with the group here at MS, however. Maybe that will help somebody down the line.

Another big one. Just from my observations though, it seems you take quite a bit of time putting thought into a lot of the details of your novels. This will maybe be reduced by finding an editor you like and trust that can spin your work into polished gold. I wouldn't suggest spending years trying to figure things out. If you want to get to your next book, you have to let this current one go out in the world.

Amen!

I spent a lot of time on the learning curve. It's important to me to make sure I'm putting something out there that has the potential to engage readers. Trying to be objective as possible, I think I now possess the ability, on occasion, to write scenes that are engaging. I have no idea if that ability will translate well into an entire novel that is engaging.

I'm ready to put my stuff out into the world. I'm rewriting my novelette, Abuse of Power, for release sometime in August, and I plan to release Rise of the Mages on October 1.

This feels kind of weird to me because your feedback is most likely going to be inconsistent. Some readers may like one character's arc, while another reader may hate it. It's going to be hard to keep up with pleasing everyone. The best case would be to do what you do well, um, well and then what you're noticing your not doing as well, work on it more. You can't guarantee everyone that reads your work is going to be a fan for life.

Like the article cupiscent posted below, I think that the trick is figuring out what you should take away from reviews. Thus far, I think I've been pretty successful in doing so, but I've had limited experience. I do think, however, that it is a crucial skill to develop. I'm going to put a lot of work into it.

Experiment with marketing: OK, so this goes back to what I mentioned before. Focusing heavily on marketing. I seem to think paying for marketing is going to produce your biggest gains. Stuff like BookBub or some other services can get your books in front of tons of strangers.

I'm reading lots of books on marketing books. Lots of ideas. My plan is to experiment and see what works. I will share my experiences with the group.

 

[PaulineMRoss]

As Russ said, part of the problem with being an indie writer is that there are no good benchmarks. I literally have no idea if the $$$ that I mentioned is attainable or pie in the sky. I do plan on sharing my experience with the group here at MS, however. Maybe that will help somebody down the line.

I can share some of my experience right now. These are my actual royalties since my first book was self-published last September (trusting you guys to treat this as confidential):

Sep: $27 [book 1 released]
Oct: $12
Nov: $15
Dec: $222 [promotion of book 1]
Jan: $599 [release and promotion of book 2]
Feb: $716 [promotion of book 1]
Mar: $726 [promotion of book 2]
Apr: $390 [no promotion]
May: $1,130 [release and promotion of book 3, promotion of book 2]
Jun (est): $2,000 [promotion of book 1 and book 2]
Jul: $??? [no promotion planned]

You can see the pattern there: more books = more money; more promotion = more money. This is all on Amazon (I'm exclusive). ETA: obviously, this is gross; but this month I will have covered all expenses for the first 3 books, and then some. Still a few expenses outstanding, but I should be in profit by the end of my first year.

Obviously, YMMV. Some books sell outrageously well from day 1. Some don't sell no matter what. With fantasy, I've noticed that readers love traditional styles: the whole farmboy/heir/magic sword/prophecy thing. Stick closely to the tropes of the genre for real money. And it's VITAL to have a genre-appropriate cover. Absolutely critical. Doesn't matter whether you run it up yourself or pay top dollar for a professional, so long as it tells the reader exactly what to expect. The blurb's important too, but not so much.

I'm ready to put my stuff out into the world. I'm rewriting my novelette, Abuse of Power, for release sometime in August, and I plan to release Rise of the Mages on October 1.

Awesome! Looking forward to it, Brian.

Like the article cupiscent posted below, I think that the trick is figuring out what you should take away from reviews. Thus far, I think I've been pretty successful in doing so, but I've had limited experience. I do think, however, that it is a crucial skill to develop. I'm going to put a lot of work into it.

If you get long, thoughtful reviews from bloggers or fellow authors, sure, read them but treat them like beta readers: just another opinion. Regular customer reviews? The best advice I can give you is not to even look at them, if you can avoid it. They're all over the place, truly. Most are only a few lines long, and every reader likes different things. What one loves another hates, and vice versa. You'll drive yourself mad trying to divine a pattern to them.

I'm reading lots of books on marketing books. Lots of ideas. My plan is to experiment and see what works. I will share my experiences with the group.

I'll give you my standard advice: get hold of David Gaughran's book Let's Get Visible. It's the best guide I've found on what works and what doesn't (it's Amazon-based, but you'll want to start there anyway, even if you go wide later). For the latest word on self-pubbing and marketing from people who've done it (and are making money from it, in many cases), go to the Kboards Writers' Cafe. Lots of people (including me) give blow-by-blow breakdowns of promotion campaigns with actual results and costs. Just remember that it's a public forum.

 

[BWFoster78]

Pauline,

Awesome!

With three books out, you're spiking up into the territory where I want to be. Fantastic!

I haven't read Let's Get Visible, yet, but I will. So far I've read:

How to Make a Killing on Kindle (interesting stuff but mainly geared to nonfiction)
Book Marketing is Dead (Author platform and social media)
Supercharge Your Kindle Sales (Concentrated on keyword searches and building an email list)
10 Stages of Audience Sales Funnel Gap Analysis Sampler (Horrid. No really good tips and lots of marketing jargon)

For those who haven't read Pauline's books, I suggest you check her writing out. She's got a great voice; I found myself pulled into the story even when there wasn't a ton of obvious tension on the page.

 

[Philip Overby]

Thanks for sharing, Pauline. I know you may not want to share all of your methods, but what actual promotion made you jump from double digits to triple digits? Did you use a service or was it just through Kindle Select?

I'm going to agree with Pauline in a huge way about fantasy: if you want to really make money, it's best to stick to what's traditional. I think my Splatter Elf work is about as far away from that as possible, but I'm aiming for a niche that likes dark comedy. I've had several comment on how different my style is and even some that say "I can see a lot of people hating this." That's kind of a big compliment for me though. Yet I don't ever expect mega sales. At least with that particular brand. But as Pauline said, it's all about building something and then targeting the audience that might buy it.

So yeah, I do think I'll continue my niche work because I love it, but I may edge closer to traditional fantasy works in the future and see how it does. I'm pretty wide open about what I'll try. As long as I love the characters and the world, I'll do any genre really.

 

[BWFoster78]

Luckily, I don't think my stuff is far from the mainstream at all. I love coming of age, heroes journey type stuff, so that's what I wrote. I think the main differences between my stuff and most of what I've read is that I probably make the romantic subplots a little more promenant.

 

[PaulineMRoss]

Thanks for sharing, Pauline. I know you may not want to share all of your methods, but what actual promotion made you jump from double digits to triple digits? Did you use a service or was it just through Kindle Select?

There's no secret about it. All my promotion campaigns have been documented exhaustively on Kboards, and some of them on my blog (I'm on a tablet right now, I'll get the links for you later).

Because I'm in KDP Select, I use their promotion tools. I've tried the free days a couple of times, and I've tried the countdown (where the price is $0.99) a few times. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. To launch the new books, I just manually reduce the price to $0.99. Then I pay for various promotion sites who send details of free/discounted books to their mailing list. This is win/win, really, because (unlike most advertising) the recipients have opted in to receive the email - they already want to get new books to read. And the author gets a ready-made pool of potential readers.

The best sites I've found so far are ENT, OHFB, FreeBooksy/BargainBooksy, Bknights and a few others. The holy grail of promo sites is BookBub, but I haven't managed to get in there yet. I try not to reuse any site too soon for the same book. A lot of these sites have constraints on what they'll accept: a minimum number of reviews, a minimum review rating, and so on. A typical spend of $200 on a number of different sites will bring in maybe 200-300 additional sales during the promo, and a nice bump in sales when the book goes back to full price. If the book is free, you can get thousands of downloads. And the really cool factor: now that I've got 3 books out, promoting one book leads to additional sales on the other two. That's the real reason for the sudden jump in revenue for each additional book.

There are other ways to advertise. I've dabbled with Facebook ads, but it needs a lot of experimentation to get it to work, and it's easy to spend a lot of money very quickly. Ditto Google ads. Social media is limited in effectiveness unless you already have a huge following.

One other thing: set up a mailing list via MailChimp or similar. Put links to it at the back of every book. It takes time to build, but eventually all an author needs to do to launch a new book is tell the mailing list.

 

[Philip Overby]

Thanks, I'll have to swing by your blog and check out more of your info.

I do have a mailing list, but I had no idea how to really get people to join up. Putting it at the end of the book is a great idea. I have it on my blog, but it's not the most active place on the internet. I try to update once a week with something new. But I'm not getting as hardcore into blogging as I was in the past.

I haven't used the KDP Select promotions yet, but since I only have one short story, I don't have as much to build off of. I'm hoping by the end of the year, I'll have at least one novel for sale and at least eight short stories (one per month). Since I heard Scribophile users like to critique short stories for quick reads, I'm hoping joining up there will help getting things polished. I haven't dove in yet, but I hope to soon. My plan is when my second short story is released, to make the first short story free and then try to get in on some of these free book promo services. I know since I'm doing shorts, that may limit me for now because I know they prefer only to put books on some of those services.

I thought maybe spending some money to make money made the most sense to me. So it's good to know how much you spent and then the general sales you've gotten from doing so.

I also noticed when one of your books was for free, you mentioned it on reddit and got loads of responses. I've posted some there, but it's probably right below Facebook and Twitter for places I frequent the most (besides this forum).

I'm willing to try a Facebook promotion just to see what it does, but I've heard for some people they got mixed results. I think it must be better to try one of these services above you mentioned because they're targeting readers looking for books directly. I think Facebook is probably where I'm most active (especially since I've joined several groups), but I don't really use it for promotional purposes other than to share reviews.

So far I have Facebook (regular page), Facebook (Splatter Elf page), Twitter (regular), Twitter (Splatter Elf), reddit, Goodreads Author Page, Amazon Author Page, my blog, a mailing list, and probably a bunch of other stuff I'm forgetting. I know a lot of writers have cut loose some things that don't work as well for them.

Anyway, thanks!

 

[PaulineMRoss]

One other thing I forgot to mention, but since we're talking money needs to be factored in: as from 1st July, Amazon will be paying for books borrowed under the Kindle Unlimited subscription scheme by pages read NOT per book. This is a huge deal for fantasy writers. Under the existing scheme, my 550 page epic gets paid exactly the same as a 20 page short story - $1.35 or thereabouts. Now a borrow could be worth several times that (if readers make it to the end of the book). The exact amount to be paid per page won't be known until mid-August, but it has to be better for long-form writers. So there might be another big jump in royalties because of that (I have several hundred borrows per month just now). But only for authors who've signed up for KDP Select (exclusive to Amazon).

 

[BWFoster78]

Philip,

One method I read for building up your email list is to offer a work for free in exchange for signing up. That actually worked pretty well for me when I used to have a blog. My suggestion would be for you to build up a library of a few titles and then offer one of those.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I've read David Gaughran and I've even emailed back and forth with him and he seriously knows his business. I'd recommend him to anyone looking to self-publish. He's really personable and will take the time to email you back if you have questions about his methods.

 

[PaulineMRoss]

The links I promised:

The very detailed breakdown of the recent promotions (launch of book 3, countdown of book 1, free days for book 2) is here. All the info is in the first post. Lots of people post threads like this on Kboards. I can highly recommend it for marketing tips.

The blog summary of that is here.

Blog post about the promotion for the launch of book 2 is here.

 

[PaulineMRoss]

I've read David Gaughran and I've even emailed back and forth with him and he seriously knows his business. I'd recommend him to anyone looking to self-publish. He's really personable and will take the time to email you back if you have questions about his methods.

Yeah, he's a great guy. He posts on Kboards, too. But he is very evangelical about self-publishing.