Category: Author Interview

SFFMP 66: Writing and Selling Paranormal Romance with Elle Thorne

Author Interview, Podcast

We chatted with up-and-coming indie author Elle Thorne today about writing and selling paranormal romance. She’s been publishing for less than two years, but she’s been very prolific, has numerous series going, and has contributed to several boxed sets. She’s doing quite well for herself.

Here’s some of what we discussed:

  • Rocking it with novella length fiction
  • The difference between urban fantasy and paranormal romance
  • The challenges and rewards of writing in a popular genre
  • Following trends in PNR versus just writing what you’re passionate about
  • Boxed sets — the challenges of committing to writing new fiction for a set and when it’s worth it
  • Effective ways to increase your mailing list sign-ups
  • Kindle Unlimited and KDP Select for PNR and novella-length fiction
  • Looking at the top book covers in your genre for inspiration
  • Becoming a part of existing Facebook groups in your genre as a means of promotion
  • Doing cross-promotion with other closely related authors to increase your reach
  • The challenges of getting sponsorships with the shorter fiction
  • Tips for authors just getting into PNR

Check out Elle’s books on Amazon — right now you can get Protection, the first in her Shifters Forever series, for free. You can also visit her on the web at Elle Thorne and see what she’s up to on Facebook.

 

| 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.

, , , , , , ,

SFFMP 64: Rachel Caine Talks Urban Fantasy, YA, Traditional Publishing, and Rocking a Kickstarter Campaign

Author Interview, Podcast

Today’s guest, Rachel Caine, has been publishing urban fantasy and YA fantasy since 1991. She’s been traditionally published throughout her career, but she recently decided to self-publish a new book in her long-standing Weather Warden series. She launched a Kickstarter to help finance the project, asked for $5,000 and ended up earning $18,000+. We asked her about the Kickstarter and also what she’s seen as far as changes in the industry, along with the differences in self-publishing and traditional publishing when it comes to marketing and more.

Some of the things we talked about were:

  • The state of urban fantasy today and how trends wax and wane
  • Creating a successful Kickstarter campaign (and some tips for how to save more of the money that people pledge to you).
  • Building a mailing list as a traditionally published author (she uses Mailchimp and has done giveaways with Rafflecopter).
  • Creating items for physical giveaways at signings and conventions (Rachel mentioned MakePlayingCards.com for doing character cards and ClubFlyers.com and Vista Print for bookmarks, postcards, and the like).
  • Visiting schools and marketing to librarians to help sell YA fiction
  • What kind of help you can expect from traditional publishers when it comes to marketing and what’s most likely going to be up to you.
  • The challenges of participating in such common self-pub marketing tactics as multi-author bundles and price-related promotions when your books are traditionally published
  • Whether social media and “having a platform” are important when it comes to getting a traditional deal
  • Being careful about signing a contract and watching out for rights grabs

You can find Rachel at her website, on Twitter, and you can visit her author page on Facebook.

She has lots of new books coming out for you to check out. She has a story coming out in the new X-files anthology, she has a collection of short stories from her Morganville Vampires series, and the next book in her Great Library series will be out this summer. Check out the first here (visit her site for more news and links to other stores).

 

 

| 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.

, , , , ,

SFFMP 63: Improving Sales as Your Series Progresses with Space Opera Author Terry Mixon

Author Interview, Podcast

Today’s guest is a former NASA employee and U.S. Army soldier who recently made the switch to writing science fiction full time. Terry Mixon is the author of two space opera series, The Empire of Bones Saga and The Humanity Unlimited Saga, and he’s also dabbled in erotica (as he informed us during the interview, he’s now making more from his sci-fi than he did from erotica, so there’s no reason not to write what you love). In addition to being an author, Terry is one of the co-hosts of the Dead Robots’ Society Podcast.

Here’s some of what we covered in the show:

  • Keeping the story interesting as the series progresses
  • The state of space opera currently when it comes to marketing and selling books
  • The pros of starting out in KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited
  • Running Kindle Countdown Deals on older books at the same time as you release a new book in the series
  • Nailing your genre with your covers (making your book look like it could be on the shelf next to traditionally published novels)
  • Building your mailing list — do you need to offer incentives?
  • Amazon’s 30- and 90-day cliffs
  • Building a fan base by publishing regularly in a series

Check out Terry’s books on Amazon, including the first book in his Empire of Bones Saga.

 

| 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.

, , , ,

SFFMP 62: Anthologies, New Covers, and Creating Boxed Sets to Increase Sales with C. Gockel

Author Interview, Podcast

We had our first repeat guest on the show today, urban fantasy author Carolynn Gockel (writing as C. Gockel) from Episode 19, where we chatted about permafree books, getting started on fan fiction sites, using Tumblr to promote, and where to buy sponsorships. Carolynn has been busy with a lot of marketing stuff in the last year, and she’s also jumped into science fiction, so we talked about some of what she’s done and learned recently.

We discussed:

  • The promotional (and monetary) perks of putting a short story into an anthology with other authors in your genre, all of whom throw their marketing weight behind the release.
  • Starting your own multi-author boxed sets and whether it’s better to do permafree sets or 99-centers.
  • How to snag a Bookbub ad on a multi-author anthology.
  • The challenges of launching a new series in a different genre from your flagship series.
  • Having one series in Kindle Unlimited (KDP Select) and one wide (she recommends that new authors start out in KDP Select right now).
  • Getting approached by audiobook producers and if it’s better to sell your audio rights versus spending the money producing your own audiobooks.
  • Whether investing in new covers resulted in an uptick in sales and was worth it for Carolynn.
  • Her adventures in Facebook advertising — is it worth using Facebook to promote permafree Book 1s? Boxed sets? Multi-author boxed sets?
  • Lastly, she let us know that she writes because, “If I wasn’t an author, I’d probably be a nasty internet troll.” We all have our motivations!

Grab her first book in the I Bring the Fire series for free from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, or Apple. You can also check out the first ebook in her science fiction series, Archangel Down.

Visit her online at C. Gockel Writes.

 

| 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.

, , , , , , , ,

SFFMP 61: Using Short Fiction for “Gatekeeper Cred” and Editing Tips with Mike Reeves-McMillian

Author Interview, Podcast

Today we chatted with Mike Reeves-McMillian, former copy editor with a publishing house and current writer of short and novel-length speculative fiction. He shared some tips for self-editing and talked about how short story sales can still be useful and what it means to be a “light hybrid author.”

Here are a few more notes from our discussion:

  • Using short story sales to gain “gatekeeper cred.”
  • Why Mike likes magazines and anthologies rather than attempting to sell novels to houses (they’re “less rightsy-grabby,” have a quicker turn-around, and you end up making more per word than is typical with novel advances).
  • Sites for finding short story markets: Duotrope (fee) and The Submission Grinder (free)
  • Tips for catching errors in your own work (such as changing fonts and reading upside down — yes, really).
  • Some of the common editing errors he sees, both in self-published work and in traditionally published books.
  • Clippings, a tool that will will take the output of your Kindle notes and highlights and transform it into a spreadsheet or several other formats.

Check out Mike’s novels and short stories, and of course his helpful The Well-Presented Manuscript: Just What You Need to Know to Make Your Fiction Look Professional. (You can find quite a bit of free information on the page for his book.)

To see his reviews for speculative fiction, visit The Review Curmudgeon. He’s also active on Google+.

 

| 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.

SFFMP 60: Rocking the Charts in YA Fantasy with New Author Elise Kova

Author Interview, Podcast

We interviewed new YA fantasy author, Elise Kova, on the show today, and I think you guys will enjoy the listen. At the end of the summer, she launched her first book, Air Awakens, and it’s done great in sales and earned a lot of positives reviews. She managed all of those sales with a full priced offering (3.99) and also without jumping into KDP Select. She’s done so well with it and the follow-up books in the series that she’ll be switching to writing full time soon.

We asked her about writing and marketing YA fantasy, launching a successful first book, accumulating a street team, getting bloggers to reveal your cover, and having paperbacks and hardbacks as well as ebooks made. (She uses Gatekeeper Press to handle the formatting and get physical copies made.)

Elise talked about getting custom cover illustrations done for her books, which have doubtless helped sales. Her artist is Merilliza Chan, whom she found on Deviant Art.

She also spoke about getting her start on FictionPress and whether that can be useful for building an author platform. Listen to the show because there’s a lot of great information in it!

Once you’re done, you can find Elise at her website, on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook.

 

| 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.

, , , , , ,

SFFMP 57: Cover Design That Sells Books with Sylvia Frost

Author Interview, Podcast

Today we chatted with our first cover designer, Sylvia Frost. Not only does she have some tips for authors in regard to getting the cover of their dreams, but she’s done some analysis of the Top 100s in paranormal romance/urban fantasy, science fiction romance, epic fantasy, and science fiction.

Here are some of the topics we touched on during the show:

  • What mistakes do authors sometimes make in their communications with designers?
  • Is it important to look at the Top 100s for your subgenre and to emulate what popular books are doing? What about what traditional publishing is putting out?
  • What’s trending insofar as science fiction and fantasy covers go?
  • How much should you expect to pay for cover art (stock photos, versus custom illustrations, versus a photo shoot with models)?
  • Should the author name be larger than the title?
  • What are some tricks for thinking ahead and branding a series with common elements?
  • If you’re a new author, when should you contact a cover designer, and how long can you expect the process to take for various types of covers?
  • How faithful to the story/characters should a cover be?
  • Nods to other designers: Tom Edwards for spaceships/sci-fi and Gene Mollica for high-end custom illustrations with models + photo shoots.

Sylvia has a couple of blog posts you may want to check out too:

Also take a look at the files Sylvia and her brother put together about some of the common cover elements for best sellers in several categories on Amazon:

She’s still accepting new clients, and as a reminder, she offered our listeners 10% off, so say you heard about her here first when getting in touch! Here’s a look at her portfolio on her site.

Sylvia Frost also writes paranormal romance, so check out her books if you’re looking for a read. The first book in her Moonfate series is free right now, and you can see what she’s doing for covers!

 

| 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.

, , , , ,

SFFMP 56: Self-Pub vs. Small Press vs. Trad + Effective World Building with Liana Brooks and Amy Laurens

Author Interview, Podcast

Today we chatted with Liana Brooks and Amy Laurens, sci-fi and fantasy authors who both got their start with short stories and have branched out into novellas, novels, and creating their own press: Inkprint Press.

Here’s some of what we covered today:

  • The differences in marketing when you’re indie published, small press published, and traditionally published, including how much work you can expect to do on your own.
  • The importance of networking with other authors, especially as an indie author.
  • Participating in anthologies (bonus points if you can get into an anthology with a bigger name author)
  • Getting the rights back to previously published short stories and self-publishing them
  • The challenges of marketing novella-length fiction
  • Getting custom business cards for each of your series, so you can tailor what you’re trying to sell to the individual you meet (they use Moo.com NFC-chip cards to allow people to hold the card up to a smart phone and automatically get a free download delivered right to the phone)
  • Aspects of social media that they’ve found useful
  • Are blog tours still worth it? And organizing one as an indie
  • Do you run into problems when cross-promoting between indie and trad pubbed books?
  • World building tips from a science stud (Amy) who has a book on world building coming out in 2016 — you can sign up to hear when it’ll be out on her site: From the Ground Up, notification list.

Both authors have work in the free Tales from the SFR Brigade that you can check out. Their books are, of course, available from Inkprint Press as well as the usual spots. Liana recommends trying her Even Villians Fall in Love series (superhero romance) or The Day Before Time (sci-fi).

 

| 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.

, , , ,

SFFMP 54: Marketing Books on a Long Release Cycle with Moses Siregar III

Author Interview, Podcast

We chatted with Moses Siregar III tonight, a busy epic fantasy author with two novels out. Like many folks in our audience, he has a lot on his plate, and it takes a while for him to write, edit, and publish new books. We talked about whether it’s better to self-publish or seek a traditional deal with this kind of schedule and what kind of marketing you can do when you don’t have the momentum of frequent releases behind you.

Moses also talked about his experience with podcasting (he was a host on Adventures in SciFi Publishing for some time) and how he met other authors and made some helpful contacts through seminars and conventions. When trouble with wrist problems bothered him, he became a fan of walking around the neighborhood and dictating his story. He used a service called iDictate which, for a reasonable fee, transcribes what you dictate into your phone.

We discussed some of the challenges, both of marketing and keeping the momentum going, when you write long epic fantasy novels. Since he doesn’t release his novels that quickly, Moses decided to make preview novellas for both of his books, as a way of getting something out there during the in-between years.

Check out the rest of the interview for more!

When you’re done, you can visit Moses’s SciFiFantasyBooks YouTube Channel or stop by his blog and visit him on Facebook. Grab The Black God’s War on Amazon or Smashwords, or try out his latest, The Ninth Wind.

 

| 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.

, , , , ,

SFFMP 53: Jill Nojack Dishes on Kindle Scout (why to consider it and how to win)

Author Interview, Podcast

On today’s show, we chatted with Jill NoJack, fantasy author and Kindle Scout winner. The first book in her Bad Tom paranormal romantic comedy series, The Familiar, was selected for a publishing deal with Amazon. We asked her all about the Kindle Scout program, who might want to consider trying out, and what’s in it for the authors who are selected by Amazon.

Jill talked about what it takes to be chosen (excellent copy-editing and a great cover for starters) and how Amazon promotes those books that are published through the program. Winners receive $1500 and a 50% royalty split, and the ebooks get marketed through Amazon, are sometimes eligible for Daily Deals, and sometimes get submitted to Bookbub on Amazon’s dollar. For a self-published author who has been struggling to gain traction, it can get a new series or stand-alone book off to a solid start. Jill did a thorough write-up of her experience on Steve Vernon’s blog.

For more on the program or to submit your book (make sure it’s publication-ready), visit Amazon’s Kindle Scout page.

Don’t forget to check out Jill’s winning book! You can also visit her on Facebook or get updates on her website.

 

 

| 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.

, , , ,
1 … 11 12 13 14 15 … 17