Month: August 2016

SFFMP 96: Switching to Epic Fantasy and Rocking It with Phil Tucker

Author Interview, Podcast

We chatted with Phil Tucker about his time working at Penguin, his first couple of series (including paranormal romance novels published under a pen name), and his new Chronicles of the Black Gate epic fantasy series, which has been selling great since its release back in May. Even though his previous experience was in paranormal and vampires, he had a solid launch, and we grilled him on what he did in designing and marketing the new series.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the topics we hit on:

  • Phil’s experience working in the content marketing department at Penguin publishing
  • Why he chose self-publishing instead of traditional publishing
  • Learning the ropes with his first vampire series
  • Starting a paranormal romance pen name, finding some success, but then switching away from it
  • Going back to his first love with epic fantasy
  • Going into debt to invest in great cover art
  • Studying the blurbs of top-selling books in the epic fantasy genre and making sure he had the best package possible when he launched
  • Participating in Mark Lawrence’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off and gaining some attention and reviews from that
  • Using a free prequel to encourage mailing list sign-ups
  • Keeping to a two-month release schedule even while writing long epic fantasy novels and working full time at the day job

Check out Phil’s books on Amazon or visit his website for more information. Oh, and make sure to check out the beautiful covers on his epic fantasy series. Here’s a link to the first book.

 

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SFFMP 95: Boxed Set Strategies (multi-author and solo novel bundles and short story anthologies)

Group Discussion, Podcast

Today, the guys chatted about their experiences with multi-author and solo-author book bundles of existing material and also anthologies of new short stories or novellas. They offered some tips and strategies based on whether you’re looking for more exposure (getting more people into the rest of your series), to make money, or to hit a bestseller list. They also started out answering a few listener questions.

Here are a few more notes on what they covered during the show:

  • Jesper Schmidt’s Fantasy Map Making: A step-by-step guide for worldbuilders. He’s offering 10 free copies to listeners, first come, first serve: http://dl.bookfunnel.com/xshqdkoirn. If you don’t make it in time to grab a copy, you can buy it from Amazon or learn more on his website.
  • Books on writing and resources the guys recommend: Self-Editing for Fiction Authors, Stephen King’s On Writing, and Brandon Sanderson’s Writing Lectures on YouTube.
  • How the guys approach world-building and a few tips from what they’ve learned along the way
  • The different types of boxed sets/bundles/anthologies and when they’re useful for marketing
  • Bundling books in your own series (how many and where you you price them?)
  • Putting together a collection of your own short stories for a bundle
  • Joining or organizing a multi-author boxed set of novels
  • The various goals of these big, multi-author boxed sets
  • Leveraging the power of many authors’ mailing lists in order to sell thousands of copies and possibly hit a list
  • Whether to go wide with a boxed set or stick it in KDP Select so you can take advantage of the page read payments
  • New fiction for boxed sets versus previously published works
  • Creating a multi-author anthology of new short stories or novellas
  • Possible anthology pitfalls
  • Whether it’s better to pay authors up front or offer a royalty split with an anthology

If you’ve enjoyed listening to the gang and want to check out their work, you can find Jeffrey M. Poole at his website and download his first Lentari book, Lost City, for free on the various sites.

You can find Jo at his website or check out several of his books for free, such as Free-Wrench and The Book of Deacon.

You can find Lindsay on her site and grab The Emperor’s Edge for free or  buy Star Nomad, the first book in her new space adventure series, for 99 cents at the time of this show.

 

 

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SFFMP 94: Putting Together an ARC Team, Getting Lots of Reviews, and Publishing More Often with Anna Hackett

Author Interview, Podcast

Science fiction romance and adventure romance author, Anna Hackett, regularly has 80-100 reviews on her books within a few days of release. We asked her about how she created a great team of reviewers who get early copies and leave prompt reviews. She’s also increased her productivity substantially in the last couple of years and often publishes a short novel each month now, so we asked her about that too.

Here are a few more specifics on what we covered:

  • Mining your existing readers/newsletter subscribers to find people for a review team (and how to get started building that mailing list if yours doesn’t have many subscribers yet)
  • The logistics of contacting reviewers with advanced review copies and making sure they can download the ebooks to their readers of choice.
  • How many reviews you should be shooting for with a new release
  • Increasing productivity by giving yourself deadlines (even if you don’t have to publish on a certain day)
  • Writing shorter novels, if it makes sense for your style and your genre
  • Keeping all the balls in the air when juggling multiple series
  • Tips for newer authors trying to get those early reviews
  • Focusing on writing and publishing books as the most effective form of marketing
  • Whether there’s a downside to giving away review copies to readers who likely would have purchased the books
  • Do book giveaways and contests help garner more reviews?

If Anna’s books sound interesting to you, she has several permafree adventures that you can check out:

Among Galactic Ruins (Phoenix Adventures — space romance)

Marcus (Hell Squad, Book 1 — dystopian romance)

Time Thief (Anomaly Series, Book 1)

Anna also has a boxed set available for free if you visit her site and sign up for her newsletter.

 

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SFFMP 93: Straddling Genres and Succeeding with Multiple Different Series with Rachel Aaron

Author Interview, Podcast

Popular fantasy author Rachel Aaron joined us today to talk about succeeding with books that straddle genres, launching later books in a series, and turning your writing into a business, among other topics.

Here are a few more subjects that we touched on:

  • The challenges of writing across genres and marketing books that don’t fit tidily into a category
  • Rachel’s experiments with advertising and what has worked best
  • Using a pre-order to increase sales of an entire series and how to build launch buzz over several weeks
  • Some of the perks of being in Kindle Unlimited (Rachel explains why she believes KU readers are less likely to leave bad reviews)
  • How audiobooks have become a significant source of income for Rachel
  • The challenges of maintaining a high degree of productivity after this becomes a full-fledged business

Visit Rachel on her site, check out the fan art she mentioned, or take a peek at her first Heartstrikers book on Amazon.

 

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SFFMP 92: How to Use KDP Select to Sell More Books with Susan Kaye Quinn

Author Interview, Podcast

We got a lot of great information from today’s return guest, science-fiction and paranormal romance author, Susan Kaye Quinn. In addition to writing genre fiction, she’s penned For Love or Money, a book that talks about the ongoing debate on whether to write to the market, to write your passion, or to try and find the spot where the two areas mesh.

Since Susan has been doing a number of experiments with Amazon’s KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited promotions lately, we focused on that during the show, trying to find the information that would help authors work KU to their advantage and do better with the promotions available to those in the program.

Here are a few specifics we covered:

  • Being wide (in all the stores) and having a permafree title versus being in KDP Select with a 99-cent title
  • How to have a successful free run while in KDP Select and why “getting the attention of borrowers” matters more than anything else
  • How borrowers are almost like an entirely different store with their own eco-system
  • What to do if you’ve been wide and are bringing older titles into KDP Select
  • What some of the problems might be if your books just aren’t selling as well as you wish
  • Figuring out if a book or genre is a good match for KDP Select
  • Whether pre-orders are a good idea when you’re in KDP Select and you’re relying on borrows (which can’t roll in until the book is live)
  • Dealing with readers who might be upset if you switch from being in all the stores to being exclusive with Amazon
  • Figuring out whether you should give KDP Select a try based on how well you’re doing in other stores
  • Whether you should save up books and launch them in a cluster or try to stagger them to release over time
  • Places to advertise KDP Select titles

Stop by Susan’s site, check out her books on Amazon, and sign up for her popular For Love or Money group on Facebook. Lindsay is there as are many other indie authors.

Also check out Susan’s previous appearance on the show if you haven’t already: Episode 36.

 

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