March 2017 – Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

SFFMP 125: Kobo’s New Subscription Service and the State of the Industry with Mark Lefebvre

March 28, 2017 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Today, Mark Lefebvre, horror writer and the Director of Self-Publishing and Author Relations at Kobo, joined us for his second time on the show. Previously, we chatted about international sales trends and tips for selling more books at Kobo.

Today, we asked Mark about some of the new developments at Kobo, such as a subscription service for readers (one which indie authors can enroll in) called Kobo Plus. You’re not automatically enrolled. If you’re interested, you need to select to participate in the “rights” section for each book, and Kobo asks that you be willing to leave your book in for a six month period (they’re asking the same thing from traditional publishers), to help them plan for promotions.

We also asked Mark about some of the state-of-industry stuff. For instance, is the ebook market now “saturated,” or is it still growing in the U.S. and in other countries? What percentage of ebooks being sold come from traditional publishing, small press, and indie authors? What can newer authors do to gain traction now that there’s more competition in the marketplace? Is a permafree Book 1 still a good marketing strategy for Kobo? And how might one get more books to sell in the growing international markets?

Among other things, Mark mentioned using the universal link creation service at Books2Read to turn one link into links for all your books so that your international readers and readers in other stores can easily find the one that works for them.

If you want to upload direct to Kobo, or read the Writing Life blog or subscribe to the podcast, you can do so from the main site: Kobo Writing Life.

You can also learn more about Mark and his work on his site.

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ebook market, kobo, kobo plus, kobo subscription program, mark lefebvre, permafree

SFFMP 124: Collaborating and Networking with Other Authors to Reach Larger Audiences

March 21, 2017 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

We had a full house tonight with Jo, Jeff, and Lindsay talking to J Thorn, J.F. Penn, and Zach Bohannon, three authors Lindsay is currently collaborating with for a dark fantasy project. Not unexpectedly, our show topic is collaboration, something we’ve talked about before but not for a while. We also discussed networking with other authors and even store merchandizers and how you can get more eyeballs on your work by doing some of these group projects or participating in group promotions.

Here are a few of the details of what we discussed:

Some of the benefits of collaboration, both from a writing perspective and from a marketing perspective.
Growing your audience through exposure to other authors’ audiences.
Leaning more about your craft through working closely with other authors.
Approaching people you might be interested in working with.
How accounting works when you’re splitting the earnings and expenses among two or more authors.
Handling differences that might come up during the project.
Marketing the finished project and what to do when some of the authors usually write in different genres and have different kinds of lists.
Networking with other authors for marketing opportunities that don’t involve actual writing collaboration.
Going to conventions, book expos, etc. to meet other authors and also store merchandizers to get on their radar.

You can check out more on the collaborative project (American Demon Hunters: Sacrifice) right here.

Interested in more interviews? J Thorn was also on the show back with Episode 52: Collaborating and Organizing Multi-Author Boxed Sets. Zach Bohannon talked with us on Episode 49: Productivity and First Book Success.

J.F. Penn (AKA Joanna Penn) also runs the informative Creative Penn podcast for author-prenuers.

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collaborating, j thorn, joanna penn, marketing, networking, Zach Bohannon

SFFMP 123: Gail Carriger on Transitioning from Traditional Publishing to a Hybrid Career

March 14, 2017 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

New York Times bestselling steampunk/fantasy author Gail Carriger joined us this week to talk about writing and marketing for traditionally published novels as well as her experiences self-publishing novellas and short stories. She’s very proactive in interacting with her fans and had a lot of great information for listeners.

Here’s some of what we touched on:

Gail’s path to traditional publishing and how her books came to find an audience.
What her publisher has done as far as marketing and what she’s been expected to do on her own.
Why she decided to branch out and start self-publishing some of her novellas and short stories.
How she uses social media and her newsletter to interact with readers between releases and keep them excited about being a part of her fandom.
Using Amazon affiliate links to monitor what other things your readers are buying after they pick up your books (and why it might be useful to know that).
Gail’s experiences with book tours and whether it’s worth it for newer authors to try to arrange local book signings.
Is there anything you can do to make a publisher want to spend more money on you when it comes to their marketing/advertising budget?
Suggestions on what to watch out for with cover art.
Adult fiction versus young adult fiction.
What to watch out for when signing a traditional publishing contract, especially if you think you’ll want to self-publish on the side.

You can check out Gail’s books on Amazon and on other retailers, and you can find her on the web at GailCarriger.com or on Twitter or Facebook.

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gail carriger, hybrid publishing, steampunk, trad publishing, traditional publishing

SFFMP 122: Finding Success Self-Publishing Science Fiction After Years of Writing Children’s Books for Trad Publishers

March 7, 2017 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

This week, we chatted with Barry Hutchison, a full-time author who started out writing children’s books for a traditional publishing house and who is now dabbling in self-publishing with adult science fiction. After a bumpy start with his first self-published project, a serial called The Bug, he learned the ropes and had a successful launch for his Space Team comedic SF series. With the release of the fourth in the series coming, he expects to hit his first five-figure month in June.

Here are a few more details of what we talked about:

Why Barry chose to self-publish his adult fiction after working with a traditional publisher for so many years.
Not being discouraged by a less-than-stellar launch with his first self-published project.
Why he went into the Space Team series bootstrapping it by doing his own cover art and handling his own editing.
Launching at 99 cents and into Kindle Unlimited.
Differences in marketing between traditional publishing and self-publishing.
Writing quickly and launching subsequent books in the Space Team series with only two months between releases.
What kinds of covers make sense for comedic science fiction.
The importance of a mailing list over social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
Whether holiday stories can make sense for writers of space opera.
How Barry used a preview of his first Space Team novel on Instafreebie to get people to sign up for his mailing list before the book launched.
How promoting other authors on Instafreebie ended up with him being featured by the company.