This week, we chatted with YA science fiction author Jessica Pierce who launched her first book, Atlas Fallen, in April of this year. She didn’t spend a lot of money on her launch, relying instead on the fan base and contacts she’d accumulated on Instagram. We talked to her about how to acquire a following and build book buzz on the platform and also about some creative things she’s done with swag and launch boxes.
Here are some more specifics and links from the show:
What it’s like starting out as a new author in the YA market right now.
Overcoming the challenges of selling books to a young adult audience.
Common tropes that might be addressed in YA science fiction (or YA in general)
An introduction to book boxes.
All the kinds of swag you can make as an author for contests or to help with a book launch.
Doing magnetic bookmarks, custom book sleeves, and swag that goes beyond the typical book plates and bookmarks.
Hanging out where your target audience is.
How Instagram is a huge place to reach teenage/young adult readers.
The importance of using the hashtags on Instagram including the popular #bookstagram tag.
What to post on Instagram as an author to build buzz.
Why Jessica hired artists to do character art for her who happened to also have large Instagram followings.
If every author should be on Instagram or if it’s more ideal for those targeting younger readers.
Making sure your cover and your blurb are tailored to your target audience.
On this week’s show, Jeff, Jo, and Lindsay discussed the information on Data Guy’s slides from his 2018 SFWA presentation in May. The slides are up here if you want to take a look. They also discussed some of the news in the indie world this summer and how the Amazon hammer has been coming down on those partaking in Kindle Unlimited shenanigans. Here are Lindsay’s notes (but you’ll get more out of just looking at the slides!). Also, the tool Jo mentions partway through the episode is KDP Rocket.
Notes from the SFWA 2018 slides:
Adult SF/F sales peaked around 2009 and then, according to Nielson/NPD Bookscan, have been on the decline since.
Result? The SF/F sections in bookstores shrank and author advances did too.
It’s true that after 2009, print sales dropped twice as far as in most other book genres, but digital sales have taken up the slack. While only 25% of overall sales for traditional publishers are ebooks, it’s different with SF/F. Ebooks make up 37% of traditionally published purchases. Add in SF/F audiobook sales, and things seem to be even or even slightly on the rise.
And on the indie/small press side…
SF&F sales by traditional publishers have become the minority. Big Five takes 21% of the pie, Amazon publishing imprints 7%, other small/med/large publishers 9%, and then indie self-pub w/o imprint, with their own imprints, or in indie self-pub collectives make up more 52% (the rest uncategorized stuff).
This is units sold. He looks at dollars earned too.
The average purchase price for a trad published SF/F ebook was $8.04 (May 2017 – April 2018)
For self-pub and Amazon imprints: $3.20 (sweet spot of $4 the highest with $5 right behind it).
Put them together and the average purchase price is $4.43.
How does KU factor in?
$30 million a year in US subscription revenue is from KU which accounts for 25% of non-traditional SF/F ebook dollar sales.
When it comes to money, self-pub SF/F authors are now earning a much larger share of the royalty dollars generated by SF&F books than traditionally published SF&F authors. SF/F sales are disproportionately ebook and audio now – digital. This may explain why incomes of traditionally published and self-published authors appear to be moving in opposite directions.
Most traditionally published SF/F ebooks purchased in the last 12 months were deep backlist titles published prior to 2015. Nontraditional SF/F ebook purchases were mostly frontlist and recent backlist (since 2015).
“What happens when the non-trad “deep backlist” fills in?”
Science Fiction Top subgenres by ebook sales:
Military SF – over 4 million
Adventure SF – just shy of 4 million
Post-Apocalyptic – about 3.5 million
Dystopian – about 3 million
Space Opera – shy of 3 million
Toward the bottom: steampunk, alternative history, LGBT, Humorous
“Traditional publishers outperform in some SF categories but underperform in many of the highest selling ones.”
Fantasy Top subgenres by ebook sales:
Paranormal & urban – over 11 million (PNR/romancy in there but top selling by almost a factor of 2)
Epic fantasy – close to 6.5 million
Sword & sorcery – 4 million
Coming of Age – 3.5 million
Romantic fantasy – 3 million
Toward the bottom: Alternate history, dragons & mythological creatures, humorous, Christian fantasy, Gaslamp
End stuff:
This means SF/F sales (print, ebook, audiobook) are actually significantly up overall from that supposed high point in 2009. A lot. They’ve doubled since 2010 with the majority of sales just going unreported right now and thus understating SF&F true popularity with readers.
Why? Speculation: new SF/F readers, old readers reading more, former used book readers now buying ebooks instead, or former library users brought in because ebooks are more affordably priced?
This week, we were joined by data cruncher Alex Newton who runs the K-Lytics (i.e. Kindle Analytics) service for authors and publishers. He’s been taking a look at trends in Science Fiction and Fantasy this summer, so we invited him on to talk about the findings of his latest report. He also gave us some great information on the Amazon store such as how keywords work (and don’t work) on the site and the differences between Amazon bestseller lists and what comes up in Amazon search results.
Here are some more of the specifics we covered:
Some SF/F sub-categories that are trending upward.
Finding categories where it’s easier to get a bestseller tag (and whether it can be useful to rank highly in a tiny niche few people browse).
Finding the intersection between writing what you love and writing books that can fit into hungry and less competitive sub-genres.
Using keywords to appear in searches related to your genre.
Why there’s no point to throwing keywords into your book’s description or into the book itself.
Whether books that shouldn’t be in genres (i.e. paranormal detective romance stuck in the Arthurian fantasy category) skew the data or matters in the long run.
Why you might not want to change your keywords and categories around willy nilly.
Amazon’s natural tendency to promote churn and whether it can be fighting an uphill battle with continuing to advertise the same books for months and year at a time.
Average price points for books in the Top 100 for various subgenres.
If you’re interested in checking out K-Lytics, their website is here, and they also have some free videos and posts up on their blog.
If you want to see the screenshots that Alex shared, make sure to check out the YouTube video this week:
For this week’s show, time travel and steampunk author Nathan Van Coops joined us to talk about his two series and what he’s doing to keep them selling. He’s a busy guy, releasing one novel a year, but still manages to bring in a good income from his books.
Here are some of the specifics that we discussed:
Tropes of the time travel genre and whether readers expect you to stick to them.
Some of perks of writing in a smaller niche where it’s easier to rank on Amazon, along with some of the challenges inherent in being in a less popular genre.
Finding and connecting with readers of your genre, especially if you’re writing in a smaller niche, on Goodreads.
Launching a series in a different sub-genre after you’ve built up a fan base.
When it’s time to call it quits if a series isn’t performing well.
Why Nathan is still a fan of having a free Book 1 even though he’s transitioned his books into Kindle Unlimited and Amazon exclusivity.
What a launch looks like for Nathan now that he’s five years into his author career and built a large fan base.
Why he still does Facebook “launch parties” and giveaways for his fans.
Lowering the price of all earlier books in a series for a launch of a later book.
The challenge of running Facebook ads when you’re in a smaller niche and there aren’t any big name authors like you to target.
What Nathan does to keep books selling between his annual releases.
Making use of Kindle Countdown Deals.
Using bundles as another “book” to market when you don’t have many series or other book 1s to alternate around the various sponsorship sites.
Making the decision to invest in audiobook production when you’ve got long books (lots of hours of narration to pay for).
On this week’s show, we chat with dark/epic fantasy author and podcaster Andy Peloquin. Andy got the rights back to his first series and did a big and very successful relaunch, revamping it to appeal to assassin-loving epic fantasy fans instead of the dark fantasy fans it previously targeted.
Here are some of the specifics that we covered:
Andy’s background as a freelance writer.
His first forays into publishing, including signing with a small publisher.
Why he decided to ask for the rights back to his first series and relaunch it himself.
How he redid his blurbs and covers to target a larger audience than previously.
Researching not just in his genre but in his specific niche (assassins, mercenaries, sellswords, etc.) and seeing what kinds of covers were selling.
Creating an effective epic fantasy cover with stock photos instead of paying a fortune for custom illustrations.
Changing the titles to hit on popular epic fantasy tropes.
How he contacted other authors in his niche and asked for them to plug his book when he was ready to release the new Book 1.
How he’s designed effective Facebook ads that don’t cost him much per click.
Whether his Fantasy Fiends podcast has been useful for networking with authors and making book sales to listeners.
How to know if it’s worth doing a relaunch for a flagging series.