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Continued from Shameless Self Appreciation Thread: Dragon's Trail

Malik

Auror
This is a rabbit hole for a thread in Chit Chat, so as not to derail the whole thing.

The short of it is, I released Dragon's Trail five months ago (edit: six months, including pre-release and ARCs) nearly to the day, and yesterday everything fell into place at the same time and it popped on a Best Seller list, standing shoulder to shoulder with such luminaries as Joe Abercrombie and Tad Williams.

This was, as best I can figure it, the result of a GoodReads review from a reader who says he/she found it by accident, and who has what I can only imagine to be a massive social network. Apparently the buys from this crowd tripped the Amazon classification system, which nudged Dragon's Trail out of the ginormous Epic Fantasy category and into the way-smaller Military Fantasy category, which I've been trying to get the damned book into since before it launched. Keyword stuffing, emails and calls to Amazon, nothing, and then two nights ago it found its way into waiting arms. This was coupled with a long and steady marketing push keeping the book afloat, even if it meant putting every penny it made back into promo some months while I wrote the sequel, which I figured -- rightly -- would take about a year.

I went through a long period of pushback, derision, and scorn on another writing site that shall remain nameless, with lots of authors assuring me that I was doing this all wrong and was doomed to fail.

I literally woke up yesterday a best-selling author. In the past three days Dragon's Trail has out-earned the previous two months, and it's still going.

----

It kind of makes me giggle a bit too since I recall the discussion elsewhere (place going nameless ahem) about how your book wasn't going to "make it" because you only had the one.

To be fair, they're doing it differently. And I have five more; they're just not fully written, yet.

I made the argument, in that nameless land long ago, that these are not avocados that will wither on the shelf. I maintained, and still do, that years spent honing your craft (also apparently anathema in that horrid land) will ensure that a book will always be primed for a new reader to find it. It's digital, for God's sake; the pages won't even yellow. I'm still finding books at Goodwill that were published twenty or thirty years ago, and they've gotten me hooked on authors who are still writing today.

If you're writing formula pulps (and most epic fantasy writers don't; it's nearly impossible, the way I see it), then yes, you pretty much have to go from 30-day cliff to 30-day cliff. That's how the market works. And if you can't write well, you can game the market -- marginally -- with some tricks of the trade and make a few bucks. (There's a very small market for poorly-written fiction; Amazon has tapped into a pool of readers who just want the story and will overlook clumsy writing, and that's great, seriously. But it's not enough to build a career on, with a few exceptions who are jaw-droppingly prolific.)

But check this out:

jd_SalesRankFigure1.jpg

Amazon Sales Rank: Taming the Algorithm | Self-Publishing Advice Center

Not my book, mind you, but the math holds up in the long run. I did this over six months; steady low sales until a nudge made it take off.

The thinking on "that other board" is to go for a huge launch, get that initial spike, and then do it again with another book every 30 days as the sales peter out. (Note that Book B, the orange line, made a lot more money.) But to me, as an author who intends to release a 5- or 6-book series over the next as many years, that line of thinking is insane. I've been trying to tell other authors this for six months, now: the way the ranking algorithm is set up, it's in your favor to generate consistent sales, even if they're small, over a long period.

Nobody wants to do this, though. Apparently, some people undertake writing thinking it's a way to become YouTube famous. Even for those who undertake it seriously, very few apparently want to float a loss leader or spend all their writing income for a few months or a year keeping a book treading water in the hopes that it will find its readers later. Which, personally, strikes me as a sign of crippling self-doubt and lack of faith in one's work, but maybe I'm reading too much into it. (Although I hold that if you don't believe in whatever it is you're doing, holy shit, STOP DOING IT.)

FWIW, I have a recent blog post on revamping the entire ebook market and how someone is going to make a hell of a lot of money when they do. Especially if they pick up books that are doing exactly what mine did/does, and there are many. It has the added bonus of Bella Swan's dad, Billy Burke, singing some sexy-ass rock and roll back when I was playing in his band, so enjoy that, too. Outcasts: How and Why Someone will Build a Lit-Fic Empire off the Existing Genre Market | Joseph Malik.

"Just stay on this road, keep goin'
Ain't no use in pleasing no one."
 
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Russ

Istar
I totally agree that the book every thirty days model is not going to lead to success.

I took a few minutes to read your blog. The photo was great.

What you should know is that there are some very experienced people in the industry now running smaller publishers who have been trying to do exactly what you suggest is the winning formula. They have not been as successful as you suggest they should be and their authors are always trying to bolt to bigger houses.

While you say there are five publishers, there are five very large publishers who are made up of many smaller houses and imprints who often compete against each other, and will buy very different books on different criteria.

And to get myself really into trouble, can I ask how you define a best selling author?
 

Malik

Auror
I should've put "Best Selling Author" in quotes. Editing to do so.

I think Amazon defines it as the number one selling author in whatever genre / subcat. I'm a long way away, I admit.

But there were the words "Best Seller" right next to my book, yesterday, and listed among Amazon's "100 Best Sellers" in its genre. It's a small victory but I'll take it.
 
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Malik

Auror
I totally agree that the book every thirty days model is not going to lead to success.

I don't know about that. I think it has to do with your definition of success. For some authors, this is totally acceptable.
 

Russ

Istar
I should've put "Best Selling Author" in quotes. Editing to do so.

I think Amazon defines it as the number one selling author in whatever genre / subcat. I'm a long way away, I admit.

But there were the words "Best Seller" right next to my book, yesterday, and listed among Amazon's "100 Best Sellers" in its genre. It's a small victory but I'll take it.

I totally think it is a victory and you should take it and build on it.
 

Russ

Istar
I don't know about that. I think it has to do with your definition of success. For some authors, this is totally acceptable.

I was thinking as a model for long term financial success that can be emulated by lots of people.

The emulatable or model-able part is important.

For instance Greg Iles writes in a certain way and has great success, but he is very unique and will be the first one to tell you many times, "don't do it my way".
 

Malik

Auror
What you should know is that there are some very experienced people in the industry now running smaller publishers who have been trying to do exactly what you suggest is the winning formula. They have not been as successful as you suggest they should be and their authors are always trying to bolt to bigger houses.

I have to wonder why it's not working. All the pieces are there. It seems almost precisely analogous. I'd love to know what their models look like; I'd love to see where it breaks down.

I know a couple of authors on small imprints, and their gripe is that the publishers just don't have the capital to push a book as hard as the big houses can. Again, if instead of an advance they paid the author more on the back end, it seems like it would work. Promo money has a pretty decent ROI, or seems to. As long as there's profit, you'd think it would be scalable.
 

Malik

Auror
I totally think it is a victory and you should take it and build on it.

You know, screw it. Editing again to take the quotes back out.

My book is on a list that says "Best Sellers" on it. I think that should count. Harumph.
 

Russ

Istar
I have to wonder why it's not working. All the pieces are there. It seems almost precisely analogous. I'd love to know what their models look like; I'd love to see where it breaks down.

I know a couple of authors on small imprints, and their gripe is that the publishers just don't have the capital to push a book as hard as the big houses can. Again, if instead of an advance they paid the author more on the back end, it seems like it would work. Promo money has a pretty decent ROI, or seems to. As long as there's profit, you'd think it would be scalable.

Crap, this requires a long post to explain what I have seen. Will try to get it up in the next couple of days.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
Writing a book every 30 days is a lot of work, which some authors can do and others can't. I fall somewhere in the middle. My long-term strategy is to publish many works in several different series but this is something I know I can do. This might change as my life circumstances change. It all depends on what you as an individual are able/willing to do and what your intentions as an author are. I intend on supporting myself with writing, which means I do a lot of it but this will be different for another author.

@Malik: to touch on your point about slow steady sales; I totally agree. This is also what Chris Fox recommends in his launching books. I've done a few things here and there to get visibility for my books but I'm not breaking my neck either. Launch promos and that's it so far.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
Most products do peak within six weeks of launch and drop after that, but the exceptions are abundant. I wouldn't worry too much about what sales path you follow and instead, push it to the extent that you have faith in your work.

I can't tell you to have faith in your book. For all I know your book could be garbage. You could be wasting your time. But if you're not, if your book is golden, if you know how to put in the effort, and how to develop your skills, then the only way to make it is to keep fighting for it.

There are lots of reasons that a market could ignore a great book, that it might not get that first "chance" in the form of that first "spike," and lots of reasons to think that might not always be the best pattern anyway. If you trust in your work, take your wins and build on them.

Again, you could be wasting your time. If that possibility wasn't there, trusting in your work would be so much easier, wouldn't it?
 

Malik

Auror
Writing a book every 30 days is a lot of work, which some authors can do and others can't.

It depends what you're writing, too. If you're writing 150-page shifter romances or niche erotica shorts under a pen name, and your readers don't care about editing, it's totally feasible. If you're writing formula romance and you have a working map that you can re-use for each book with a few tweaks, it's doable, albeit with a lot of work. If you're writing 100K word, research-intensive, allegory-fueled epic fantasy with the intention of it being the mark you leave on this world, 30 days isn't going to do it. You could, technically, write 3,000 words a day. Some days, I do. But I find that when I do, most of those words suck. I have never ruled out the idea that I'm just not very good.

I'm not saying that any form of art is objectively any better than the other or has any more or less value. Some just take a lot longer.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
It depends what you're writing, too. If you're writing 150-page shifter romances or niche erotica shorts under a pen name, and your readers don't care about editing, it's totally feasible. If you're writing formula romance and you have a working map that you can re-use for each book with a few tweaks, it's doable, albeit with a lot of work. If you're writing 100K word, research-intensive, allegory-fueled epic fantasy with the intention of it being the mark you leave on this world, 30 days isn't going to do it. You could, technically, write 3,000 words a day. Some days, I do. But I find that when I do, most of those words suck. I have never ruled out the idea that I'm just not very good.

I'm not saying that any form of art is objectively any better than the other or has any more or less value. Some just take a lot longer.
It's taken me 2 years to train myself how to write fast AND clean. It's doable for sure, just comes with time and practice. And about the formulas? While romance has a formula it isn't necessarily any easier. I do just as much if not more research for my historical romances than I do the fantasy ones, and narration is similar in the sense that I have to worldbuild just as much because I'm taking readers back in time. It's the little things, like calling Billie Holiday "Lady Day" instead of by her real name, or knowing how a record player worked back then and whatnot. All of that is the same as magic and fantasy cultures just a different approach. Pretty much all of my books have strong themes so I have to weave that in, too. If I really buckle down, I can write 50k in a month easily. But that's only after I've struggled for a week or so on the opening. So yes, every writer is different and what works for one doesn't work for the rest of us. :)
 
Malik, I didn't see a place on your web site to subscribe to new posts. Since you're using WordPress, there's a widget for that. You just missed out on getting a subscriber because you don't have that set up.
 
I've tried staying abreast of sites by monitoring RSS feeds, but it doesn't work for me. What does work for me is to type my email address into "subscribe by email" forms, and receive an email in my inbox every time the blogger makes a post (usually a max of one email per day, for really active sites). The ratio of sites I visit based on RSS to those based on email subscription is probably close to 1:100. It might even be more like 1:500 or 1:1000.

There's a widget available in WordPress for adding the "subscribe by email" form to your blog, as you can see on many WordPress-based sites. The widget takes care of everything for you. You don't have to maintain an email list yourself or manually send notices to the email list. When you make a new post, subscribers automatically get notified by email. The only extra work caused for you is the initial setup.

I embed RSS feeds of other sites on my site, for the benefit of visitors to my site. That's what I find RSS good for.

If you set up the "subscribe by email" form, I'll sign up. If you leave it to me to monitor an RSS feed, I'll pass. Many other people are the same way. It's best to cater to both those who like RSS and those who prefer email subscriptions.
 

Russ

Istar
I have to wonder why it's not working. All the pieces are there. It seems almost precisely analogous. I'd love to know what their models look like; I'd love to see where it breaks down.

I know a couple of authors on small imprints, and their gripe is that the publishers just don't have the capital to push a book as hard as the big houses can. Again, if instead of an advance they paid the author more on the back end, it seems like it would work. Promo money has a pretty decent ROI, or seems to. As long as there's profit, you'd think it would be scalable.

Okay so I think I have time to do this half decently tonight. For this shorter post I quoted your bit from above I want to respond to quickly and for the second longer post I will start it off with a quote from your blog.

First off I should say I enjoyed your blog post and would commend it to people to read. I enjoyed both the prose and the passion and I learned a fair bit about the music industry from it. Don't take that as me agreeing with your conclusion though. :)

So on the bit quoted above it is important to know that there are a raft of small and medium publishers out there doing exactly what you suggest and none of them are changing the world yet or are taking off like a rocket. You should also be aware that these small and medium publishers are chock full of people with significant experience and success with big five publishers. They know which agents are credible, they have access to good market data, and they know how promo works. They know who to call at B&N to get some co-op or who to call at the Times to try and get a review etc. Granted there are some smaller publishers made up of people without significant experience but there are plenty that have lots of very experienced folks running them.

Advances are not the problem you seem to suggest they are. There are lots and lots of mid list writers out there not at big five publishers who are doing books on a royalties only basis. They also have better royalty rates than the big five offer, and those types of deals offer escalating royalty rates as you sell more copies. Ie they pay you 40% on ebooks for the first 10k and then say 50% on ebooks for everything after that. Some very nice rates indeed.

In addition even big five publishers don't pay large enough royalties to decrease the investment in promo. The last number I remember seeing is that the average traditionally published author only gets a advance of $8k. That number might be a bit out of date but I don't think it is far off. So on the scale you are talking about, $100k promo money for the book, the fact that authors get an advance is not the problem.

In fact the industry reality seems to argue (quite logically) the reverse. If I have an 8k advance into a book (as any kind of publisher) and it seems to be going in the crapper, I don't hesitate to let it go and move on to something showing more promise. If I have $80k or 800k advance into a book I sure as shooting am going to spend a lot more money to market that asset because I have paid a lot more for it, and it doesn't earn out it is way more painful to take the loss.

So, from my perspective advances are not the issue in companies not committing significant promo resources to individual books.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
This is always an interesting topic to me.

Most of the "promo" budget from a big five publisher goes towards sending advance copies to their network of reviewers, and for pitching their books to bookstore buyers. The ROI may be significant, but it's not something that can be scaled, or repeated quite so easily by anybody outside of the big five. Either you have people with an established audience willing to review the books you send them or you don't.

If there's a disruptive business opportunity here, in my opinion it's in building a reviewer network, perhaps something like a book-review wiki that many people could contribute to (not a real suggestion, just brainstorming a second).

But no, I don't think a publicist bombarding facebook with ads is going to change the industry. It might turn a profit if you can crack the right pattern (it gets complicated), but I'm not even sure it would turn enough of a profit to cover the publicist's work on each book. And if you can, and if it's scalable, then it's still going to scale better vertically. That is, it would still be better for the publicist to promote one book with their full budget than to split it ten ways and not get that same carry-over momentum from hitting certain sales thresholds.
 
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