September 2018 – Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

SFFMP 200: Marketing and Selling Audiobooks, Plus Producing and Distributing them through Findaway Voices

September 25, 2018 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

This week, Will Dages from Findaway Voices joined us to talk about producing, marketing, and selling audiobooks and some of the new options out there for indie authors. Findaway handles both production of audiobooks (by connecting you with narrators and producers) and distribution to many stores where you wouldn’t be able to upload direct.

Here are some of the specifics that we discussed:

Where Findaway distributes audiobooks.
Some large players such as Kobo, Google Play, and Walmart that are getting into audiobooks.
Selling to libraries.
How you can distribute audiobooks both through them and with ACX/Audible (by choosing the non-exclusive option on Audible).
Taking advantage of their option to set your own price — 99 cents and free are allowed for short stories, series starters, etc.
How launching everything together (ebook, audiobook, and paperback) tends to help you sell a lot more audiobooks.
Setting up a launch even if you published your ebook and print edition long ago.
The drop-and-drip method for putting out a series of older books that you’re turning into audiobooks.
How Findaway helps set you up with potential narrators if you want to produce your audiobooks through them.
Uploading audiobooks that you produced elsewhere.
How often authors get paid and the $100 minimum threshold before payout.
Some of the challenges of promoting your audiobooks and what works to move the dial.
Subscription and credit-based purchase systems.
Creating audiobook bundles of your series to entice people with more hours.
Audiobook Boom as a promo site where you can basically trade audiobooks for reviews.
Findaway’s new Authors Direct platform where authors will be able to sell their audiobooks for a 70% royalty and direct listeners who want to redeem free books with codes.

If you’re interested, you can find out more at the Findaway Voices website or check them out on Twitter.

| Open Player in New Window

Click to download the mp3.

Subscribe to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast on iTunes.

Subscribe to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast on YouTube.

Subscribe to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast via RSS.

Like us on Facebook.

audible, audiobooks, findaway voices, google play, marketing audiobooks

SFFMP 199: Rapid Release, Marketing Serials, and Going Non-Exclusive with Audiobooks

September 18, 2018 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

Today, the guys took on a batch of listener questions that ran the gamut from what’s the best schedule for a rapid release of a trilogy to what kind of markets we’ve targeted with Facebook advertising to what to do (and not to do) when choosing a book title.

And in case you missed it last week, we have a 30% off coupon code for Brian Meek’s Amazon Ads course. For those interested in signing up, you can use the code of SFFMP30: Mastering Amazon Ads: An Author’s Course

Here’s a look at the questions the guys answered:

What’s the best lag time between books in a trilogy rapid release? Is it best to dump all at once? 1/week, 1/2-weeks, or longer in between.

In your ideal rapid release schedule, how many days/weeks/months apart would you release each new novel in a science fiction series?

Any tips for marketing epic fantasy novellas/novella serials?

How do you decide when a series and it’s spin-offs should end?

How does (Lindsay) keep romance from overtaking an adventure story?

For Facebook marketing, do you find one demographic marker more useful than it’s counter-parts? Ie: is it effective to target age, income, etc, or are your best results from targeting by interest? Do you still boost posts?

Are you planning your calendar for 2019? will you be at any conferences this year? I missed you at the Sell More Books Show summit this year, but I can go next year. 🙂 Do Jo and Jeff attend anything?

Promos: is there a deeper marketing reason to choose to run them only on selected markets, or does a world-wide one mean a world-wide bucket of headaches? (See: yours and Jo’s Bookbub books being at the same time discounted on .com and full price on .it)

Lindsay, I’d love to hear about how the blog-novel went. Did it impact the launch much? How about blog traffic? Was there a bump in your other books via affiliate blog links?

Which writing craft books help/have helped you?

What does your outlining process look like?

What’s your best advice for picking a novel’s title?

How do you decide what genre to list as if it’s a bit of everything?

How do you guys get a universal link for one of your Amazon books (Amazon only), or did you not bother? Specifically a link that will send UK readers to the UK store, US readers to the US store, etc. Or did you provide links for all the separate countries?

I would love to hear an updated list of which promo sites you use.

A lot of Book Funnel/Instafreebie group promos I see all have the same group of books, even if there is a “theme” to the promo. Have you seen anyone having success doing a more targeted and small group promo?

I’d like to hear how Patreon is going. Any tips or anything you’d do differently? (I’ve just set up Patreon with early release books + other rewards like personalized copies via Ingram.)

If you need something to read this week, check out Jo Lallo’s The Adventures of Rustle and Eddy.

| Open Player in New Window

Click to download the mp3.

Subscribe to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast on iTunes.

Subscribe to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast on YouTube.

Subscribe to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast via RSS.

Like us on Facebook.

blogging a novel, boosted posts, Facebook marketing, findaway voices, kdp select, kindle unlimited, picking titles, serials

SFFMP 198: Mastering Amazon Ads with Brian Meeks

September 11, 2018 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Jo and Lindsay talked with the famous (not infamous!) Brian Meeks today, author of Mastering Amazon Ads, as well as thrillers, satire, and science fiction (under a pen name). He started tinkering with Amazon ads a couple of years ago when they first came on the scene, and they turned into a game-changer for him, allowing him to sell a lot more books and eventually quit the day job.

Now, he spends a lot of time in his Amazon ads Facebook group helping other authors, and he’s also got a course you can sign up for if you want more than is in his book. If you want to check it out, he’s offering our listeners 30% off — throw in the coupon code of SFFMP30.

Mastering Amazon Ads: An Author’s Course

Here are some specifics we covered in the show:

The basics of Amazon ads and how they work.
The difference between product display ads and sponsored product ads (and why Brian is a big fan of the former even though most people jump on the latter).
How long you should wait to see if an ad is going to catch and run well.
How recent changes to the ad system (August 2018) have got everyone bidding higher right now and authors may want to wait until things settle down again.
Why you should be patient and give everything time before raising the bid or selecting the new option to increase your bid up to 50%.
Whether it makes sense to advertise books that are wide and that can’t make money from page reads in Kindle Unlimited.
Whether it’s possible to pay for ads on a free ebook and come out ahead (i.e. when it’s a series starter).
How good copywriting is important, not just for the ads but for your book description.
Having an effective hook and drawing the reader to click more on Amazon.
How much time it really takes to get Amazon ads to move the dial for you — it’s not a quick fix or a set-it-and-forget-it method.
Once you get some success, scaling it.

Don’t forget to check out Brian’s Mastering Amazon Ads book, and you can also take a peek at his fiction. He’s written some scifi under Arthur Byrne starting with The Magellan Apocalypse.

| Open Player in New Window

Click to download the mp3.

Subscribe to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast on iTunes.

Subscribe to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast on YouTube.

Subscribe to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast via RSS.

Like us on Facebook.

advertising, amazon ads, ams, book marketing, brian meeks

SFFMP 197: From Cosplayer to Full-time Fantasy Author with NM Howell

September 4, 2018 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

This week, fantasy author NM Howell (AKA Nikko) joined the guys to talk about her journey from semi-pro cosplayer (yes, that’s a thing!) and magazine creator to full-time fantasy author.

Here are some of the details that we covered:

Cosplaying and starting a magazine.
Getting into publishing fantasy under multiple names (NM Howell also writes as Nicole Marie).
Genre hopping with witch cozies, YA fantasy with dragons, and reverse harem fantasy mysteries.
The challenges of starting and maintaining multiple pen names.
Are there too many dragon fantasy novels out there now to jump in?
Starting out with Amazon exclusivity (KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited) and gradually making some series available everywhere.
How some advertising venues (Facebook, Amazon AMS, Bookbub, etc.) work better than others for different genres. Nikko likes Facebook for her fantasy romance and Bookbub for her cozies.
How she’s found success with rapid releasing the first two books in a new series.
Experimenting with permafree Book 1s.
Does marketing later books in a series work?
Whether big multi-author bundles are still worth it as far as getting readers to try more of your stuff.