Category: Author Interview

SFFMP 182: Selling Direct from Your Site and Cultivating a Rabid Fan Base with Bookfunnel’s Damon Courtney

Author Interview, Podcast

If you’ve been wanting to sell direct from your site, figure out how to turn your current readers into rabid fans, and learn about this new GDPR thing everyone is talking about in regard to mailing lists, you’ll want to listen to today’s show. We had return guest Damon Courtney from Bookfunnel on, and he talked about concerns of authors and also what his author customers are doing that’s most effective in building a fan base and selling books.

Here are some of the specifics we covered:

  • New features at Bookfunnel including integration with Patreon and payment processors so authors can sell direct from their sites.
  • Selling advanced reader copies of books before you enroll them in Kindle Unlimited, so non-Amazon readers can buy them.
  • Which payment processors are simplest to work with and which make it so you don’t have to worry about handling sales tax and VAT on your own (Payhip was mentioned as a good option, and then the WooCommerce WordPress plug-in for those who don’t mind DIY.)
  • How some authors are getting readers to buy direct, so they have more control and take a bigger cut of the sales price.
  • Bookfunnel’s gifting option.
  • How they make it so you can restrict ebook downloads to certain reward levels on Patreon.
  • Some mistakes authors make with their mailing lists and give aways.
  • How often do you need to give away things to keep fans happy?
  • What kind of bonus content excites readers and makes them want to sign up for and stay on your mailing list.
  • Putting out regular chapters or serial episodes.
  • What GDPR is and how to know if your mailing list practices may get you in trouble.

Make sure to check out Bookfunnel and the Bookfunnel blog, and if you missed Damon’s earlier episode you can listen to that here: Using Free Ebooks to Grow Your Mailing List and Increase Readership.

 

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SFFMP 181: Spreading out Your Advertising Dollars for Effectiveness and Launching Well as a New Author

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, epic fantasy/fantasy romance author Miranda Honfleur joined us on the show. She launched her first series last November and has kept book 1 selling well and sticking in the Amazon fantasy charts while releasing more books in the series. She has three out now with a fourth to follow later this summer. We asked her how she did so well as a new author and how she’s maintaining sales.

Here are some more specifics on what we covered:

  • Miranda’s road to publishing.
  • How she’s balanced writing epic fantasy that’s heavy on romance, something epic fantasy readers aren’t always looking for.
  • What she took away from the Sell More Books Show conference as a new author.
  • How she used Instafreebie to building a mailing list months before she launched her first book.
  • Creating promotions using the King Sumo WordPress app.
  • Tips for getting the most out of Bookbub PPC ads, Amazon ads, and Facebook ads.
  • Whether she’s needed to cull her mailing list, something we just talked about on last week’s show!
  • How she tries to be everywhere with advertising.
  • How much time she’s putting into Amazon ads and other marketing methods to keep her Book 1 selling week in and week out.
  • Whether Instagram may be the next place fantasy authors should have a presence.
  • Marketing to “series-adjacent” genres as part of a larger strategy.

You can find Miranda on her website or on Amazon where her books are currently in Kindle Unlimited. If you’re a fantasy fan, check out her first book, Blade & Rose. If you enjoyed fairy tales, she’s a part of the Of Beasts and Beauties boxed set.

 

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SFFMP 179: Marketing Wide vs Marketing in Kindle Unlimited + Turning Strangers into Super Fans

Author Interview, Podcast

We had a great chat with David Gaughran this week. He’s a historical fiction author who dabbles in science fiction now and then, and when he’s not writing fiction, he’s keeping an eye on the publishing scene and analyzing what’s working for authors who are going wide and selling well on Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc. and also what’s working for those who are sticking with Amazon exclusivity and Kindle Unlimited.

We chatted about all that and also about the tactics he outlines in his new book, Strangers To Superfans and some of the mistakes authors are making.

Here are a few specifics of what we discussed:

  • Using “Audience Insights” on Facebook to figure out who your Ideal Reader is.
  • Why David recommends Stephen King’s On Writing.
  • Realizing that you can choose to sell your books all over the world or to be exclusive with Amazon but that whether you’re in Kindle Unlimited or not, you’re affected by it.
  • Why David prefers a lower spend over time rather than blowing a bunch of money on Facebook advertising in a couple of days.
  • He’s open to doing boosted posts to get more followers but says you shouldn’t advertise for likes.
  • Making sure to mention your Facebook page at the end of your books, so you can get your readers to like and follow (and you’re later able to get more complete demographic information on your fans).
  • Understanding that “most digital advertising platforms actively reward good targeting through delivering cheaper clicks or free exposure for well targeted ads.”
  • Realizing that if you’re not in KU, you’re competing with people who are earning more (70% on 99 cent books during Countdown Deals) and can afford to spend more on advertising.
  • How Kindle Unlimited has a separate recommendation engine for subscribers.
  • Taking advantage of places where fewer people are being advertised to, such as countries and platforms where Amazon KU isn’t a thing.
  • Advertising something written for mass appeal versus something written for a smaller niche audience.
  • What David calls the Discoverability Myth and why we shouldn’t get caught up in it.
  • Being careful not to confuse the Amazon algorithms or mess up your also-boughts when you launch a book, especially if you’re switching genres.
  • The different types of advertising that work for Kindle Unlimited books versus books on all the platforms, a steady drip versus a big blast.
  • Some mistakes David sees “wide” authors making (those who are marketing books on Apple, B&N, Kobo, etc.).
  • Best practices for mailing list building and emailing subscribers.

Visit David’s blog to stay up to date on Amazon, scammers, and nefarious entities taking advantage of authors, as well as other important topics that he feels compelled to write about. If you sign up for his mailing list, you can get his book, Amazon Decoded: A Marketing Guide to the Kindle Store.

Also, pick up a copy of Strangers To Superfans: A Marketing Guide to the Reader Journey.

 

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SFFMP 178: Making Good Money with Serial Novellas and YA Fantasy with Sarah K.L. Wilson

Author Interview, Podcast

On this week’s show, YA fantasy author Sarah K.L. Wilson joined us to talk about the successful Dragon School serial she’s publishing on Amazon (and in Kindle Unlimited). She’s put out nine installments since the beginning of the year, publishing a new one every 18 days, and she’s kept them selling with Amazon ads and sheer momentum.

Here’s a little more of what we covered:

  • Going from writing novels to publishing a (planned) 20-installment fantasy serial.
  • How complete each story is and whether Sarah employs cliffhangers.
  • Whether she’s got it all outlined or she’s pantsing it.
  • The challenges of finding your readership on Amazon (or any online store) when you’re targeting a teen audience.
  • Handling cover art for serial installments that you’re publishing frequently.
  • Sarah’s pricing strategy of 99 cents for the first installment and 2.99 for the others and whether there’s been any pushback from readers.
  •  Finding success with Amazon ads by monitoring them daily and tweaking whenever necessary, including adding new ads to the rotation regularly.
  • Sarah’s less than stellar results with Facebook ads.
  • How her income breaks down, sales versus KU.
  • What a typical launch looks like for her now that she’s almost 10 installments into her serial.
  • The link to Michael Cooper’s read-through calculator, which Sarah is using to calculator her ROI: https://www.facebook.com/groups/781495321956934/1111894655583664/

You can visit Sarah on her website and also check out her books on Amazon. The first installment in her serial is Dragon School: First Flight and is currently 99 cents or free to read with a KU subscription.

 

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SFFMP 177: Paying the Bills as an LGBT Urban Fantasy Author with Holly Evans

Author Interview, Podcast

We’re joined this week by LGBT urban fantasy author Holly Evans. She believes LGBT spec-fic is an up and coming sub-genre with a lot of potential, and even though it’s niche, she’s able to pay the bills writing it. Whether you’re interested in it or not, a lot of today’s interview should apply to any author thinking of writing in a smaller niche. Interestingly, Holly found more of an audience when she went wide with her books than when she was exclusive with Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited.

Here are some of the specifics that we covered:

  • Getting started in the crowded urban fantasy market.
  • Tropes for urban fantasy and also for LGBT fiction.
  • Why LGBT spec-fic may be an up-and-coming market with room for new authors to jump in.
  • What qualifies something as LGBT (i.e. do the main characters have to fall into that category?)?
  • If romance is expected and how explicit sex scenes should be if included.
  • The pros and cons of selecting the LGBT category on Amazon and other stores (easier to rank versus perhaps being overlooked by people who don’t think they’re looking for that).
  • Avoiding stereotypes.
  • Why Holly decided to leave KDP Select and publish her books to all the other stores.
  • How she’s found success in the other stores in only a few months.
  • Writing shorter series and wrapping individual books up so you can start new ones easily.
  • Whether there are any downsides to writing short.

You can visit Holly on her site and check out her books in all the major stores. Her newest series, Forged in Blood, is out now.

 

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SFFMP 176: Launching Well as a New Author, Writing Quickly, and Keeping the Momentum Going

Author Interview, Podcast

This week’s interview features NYT best-selling indie fantasy author Jasmine Walt. She talks about how she burst onto the scene a couple of years ago with her popular Baine Chronicles series and breaks down why she think it hit big even though she was a new author at the time. We also ask her about her various collaborations and how she’s kept the momentum going with the numerous new series she’s started.

Here are some of the specifics:

  • Expectations for urban fantasy, fantasy with romance, and reverse harem fantasy.
  • Writing stories that combine a lot of elements and aren’t exactly to market.
  • When taking on a collaboration partner can make sense and mistakes to avoid in co-writing.
  • Jasmine’s process that helps her publish a novel almost every month.
  • How much outlining she does before she starts writing.
  • How her first launch went and what she did to get pre-orders and sales as a brand new author.
  • What a launch looks like for her these days as a more established author with a fan base.
  • The challenges of having success with a second, third, etc. series after the first one was a hit.
  • When it’s time to move some series out of Kindle Unlimited and try to build a readership in other stores.
  • The factors that go into deciding how long a series should continue.
  • What Jasmine does for the back matter of her books.
  • Whether hitting bestseller lists (New York Times, USA Today, etc.) are useful for marketing or just nice accolades to have.

You can visit Jasmine on her website and check out the first of her Baine Chronicles novel, Burned. It’s available in all stores. Her Dragon’s Gift series (reverse harem fantasy) and recent release Cursed by Night are available on Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited.

Also, if you listen in time and you’re interested in going to the conference Jasmine is putting on in May 2018, here’s the link for that:

http://bostonfantasyfest.com/

 

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SFFMP 174: Outlining Your Novel for More Efficient Writing and Starting New in Epic Fantasy

Author Interview, Podcast

Today, we were joined by return guest Scott King, the author of Outline Your Novel: The How To Guide for Structuring and Outlining Your Novel and The Five Day Novel, as well as numerous fantasy and young adult adventures. He recently jumped into epic fantasy with the first book in his Elderrealm series, Wrath of Dragons. We grilled him on outlining and also how he found starting out in epic fantasy this year after publishing in other genres previously.

Here are some of the specifics that we talked about:

  • How an outline can help an author become more efficient.
  • Whether pantsers can get anything out of outlining.
  • Outlining a single novel versus doing a series.
  • Starting with a pitch and then developing an outline.
  • Mistakes authors make with outlining.
  • What to do if the story diverges from the outline as you write it.
  • How tough it is to break into epic fantasy today as an author new to the genre.
  • Whether Kindle Unlimited/KDP Select is a good idea for epic fantasy.
  • The pros and cons of mailing list swaps.
  • The challenges of genre jumping.

You can find Scott on his website or Twitter, and grab his first epic fantasy novel Wrath of Dragons or his outlining book, Outline Your Novel.

Also, check out his Creators Cast podcast.

 

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SFFMP 173: From Indie to Hybrid, Six Figure Audiobook Advances, and an $80,000 Kickstarter for a Novel

Author Interview, Podcast

On today’s show, we had the honor of chatting with Michael J. Sullivan and his wife and business partner Robin Sullivan. These folks were self-publishing right at the beginning of the movement (before the kindle even became a thing), and have seen and tried a lot over the years. After finding indie author success, they accepted a deal with Orbit, and Michael is now a hybrid author, taking the best from both worlds.

Here are some of the specifics that we discussed:

    • Finding success as a self-published author in the early days of the Kindle.
    • Whether it was a hard decision to switch to a traditional publisher and if giving up some money up front was worth it in terms of reaching a larger audience and growing the fan base.
    • What indie authors signing traditional contracts should watch out for, especially if they want to keep self-publishing on the side.
    • Understanding non-compete, indemnification, and limbo clauses.
    • Why it’s hard (but not impossible) to get a Big 5 publishing deal that doesn’t give up ebook, print, and audiobook rights right now.
    • Why they’ve done three Kickstarters and how they’ve had such tremendous success with them.
    • How Kickstarter can be a form of advertising and potentially bringing in new readers who weren’t already in the fan base.
    • Whether there are any drawbacks to having a super successful Kickstarter.
    • What Michael and Robin do for marketing and how that’s changed over the years.
    • Why Michael is a big fan of Goodreads.
    • Doing AMAs on Reddit.
    • Why they say you shouldn’t feel you’re going to relinquish all your marketing to your publisher if you take a trad deal.
    • How audiobooks have become a big source of income for them and what kinds of advances are potentially achievable out there right now.
    • Why they believe audiobooks are becoming what ebooks were in 2010 and that there’s lots of room for growth.

You can visit Michael on his website, and if you’re interested in his books, you can buy the latest, The Disappearance of Winter’s Daughter, (as well as the rest) directly from his site.

He’s also releasing books in his Legends of the First Empire series, with Age of War coming this summer.

 

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SFFMP 170: Keeping an Older Series Selling, Nebula Awards, and What SFWA Can Do for You

Author Interview, Podcast

On this week’s show, military science fiction author and retired Marine colonel Jonathan Brazee joined us. We talked about the wisdom of sticking to one genre and writing a series and spinoff series all in the same universe, and how that can help with marketing. It doesn’t hurt to be prolific, either! We also talked about SFWA, where Jonathan is the Chairman of the Education Committee and doing a lot to help indie authors inside of the organization.

Here are some more specific details of what we covered:

  • Jonathan’s road from his first published short story in 1978 to being a full-time indie author of more than thirty novels of (mostly) military science fiction.
  • Why he recently decided to accept a traditional publishing contract.
  • The wisdom of focusing on one genre, for the most part, and building a universe where multiple series intersect with each other and can each work to lead readers into the universe as a whole.
  • Some tropes in the military SF genre that authors would be wise to pay attention to.
  • Whether it’s harder now to break into military SF than it was a few years ago.
  • How Jonathan got involved with SFWA and why authors may want to consider joining if they qualify.
  • The networking benefits of going to conventions and getting involved as a panelist.
  • Being nominated for the Nebula awards.
  • What forms of advertising Jonathan is using now that are working for him.
  • What he’s doing these days when he launches new books.
  • The importance of setting realistic expectations and realizing it’s probably going to take more than two novels if you want to make a career of writing.
  • The types of covers Jonathan likes for his military SF and why he’s thinking of redoing some of his early ones.
  • How he keeps his older series selling years after he’s completed publishing them.
  • Advertising older books in a series when it’s time to release a new installment.
  • Keeping in touch with one’s fans and realizing how much your work can mean to some people.

As we mentioned in the show, Jonathan is one of the nebula award finalists in the novelette category with his story, “Weaponized Math.” If you’re interested in reading it, you can find it in the 99-cent Expanding Universe: Volume 3. You can also find the rest of his titles on Amazon.

If you’re a member of SFWA and want to vote for the nebulas this year (or if you just want to read the stories), you can find the list of the 2017 nebula award finalists here.

 

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SFFMP 169: Writing Across Genres, Getting New Books to Stick, and Epic/Military Fantasy with David Estes

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, David Estes–author of dystopian fiction, children’s fiction, and epic fantasy (with more genres on the way)–joined us to talk about jumping into epic/military fantasy last year, how he managed to launch well into a new genre, and how he’s kept his books in the category top 100s on Amazon for the last year. We also discussed how he got his books picked up by Podium Publishing for audiobook versions and some of the challenges of marketing audio.

Here are some of the specifics that we covered:

  • The various subgenres of fantasy and science fiction that David has written in and whether it’s been harder or easier to find success when he’s been “genre hopping.”
  • The relatively recent addition of “military fantasy” as a category on Amazon.
  • Common tropes or what readers expect from military fantasy as a subgenre.
  • Having audiobooks produced through a publisher verses producing your own through ACX.
  • Some of the challenges of marketing audiobooks and the importance of finding a good narrator.
  • How much better longer books often do when it comes to audiobooks (due to the Audible credit system).
  • Why David rapid released his first three epic fantasy novels and if he’ll do it again for his next series.
  • Keeping the momentum and publishing regularly even when you’re working a day job and writing long novels.
  • The advertising and group promos that helped David with his launch into a new genre.
  • How much he’s spending on advertising and what’s working best for him (hint: Bookbub’s pay-per-click ads) to keep his first book in the Top 100 for epic fantasy month in and month out.
  • Whether people are willing to tolerate a higher price point on longer novels.
  • Adding bonus content such as short stories to the end of novels (especially those in Kindle Unlimited) rather than selling them as 99-cent stand-alones.

Visit David’s website to see what he’s up to or check out his books on Amazon. You can also visit his Goodreads fan group, which he talked about during the interview, or follow his progress with his new Patreon page.

 

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