Author Interview – Page 5 – Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

SFFMP 168: Mailing List Tips and The Three-year, No-bestseller Plan for Making a Sustainable Living from Your Fiction

January 30, 2018 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Return guest Patty Jansen, who continues to make a great income from her fiction without being a mega seller, joined us today (live from Lindsay’s office) to talk about different types of mailing lists we can run as authors, organizing group promotions, and using a global approach to marketing that will gain you fans on all the platforms and all over the world. (She may be one of the few of us with a big fan-base in South Africa!)

Here are some of the specifics that we covered:

How Patty invests more into her series that are proven sellers with an 80% read-through rate.
What kinds of advertising she’s doing to keep a steady stream of new readers trying her books and signing up for her newsletters.
The Kboards post that led to her writing three books for authors, talking about the tactics she’s used to grow to a full-time income even without being a huge seller on Amazon or “sticking” there with new releases.
How she has found luck targeting markets that most people don’t advertise to because the countries don’t have Amazon stores (she specifically mentioned South Africa and sending people to her newsletter signup page where they could get free books).
Gauging trends and what’s working when you have more of a “long tail” approach.
How Patty is going to approach selling ARCs on her site of a series she will later release into KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited to give that a try.
Whether she is worried about pirate sites or not.
The different types of mailing lists Patty has (one is her author one and one is more of a promo mini-Bookbub style list) and how she goes about acquiring subscribers and making both profitable.
Which mailing list host you might want to consider — if you’re going to grow a list as large as you can, perhaps with group promos and Instafreebie, you’ll definitely want to get set up with a provider that’s cheaper at higher numbers of subscribers (she recommended MailerLite).
Some common mistakes that authors make in regard to mailing lists.
How she gauges success with her mailing lists (open rates, link clicks, etc.).
Whether authors need the mailing list hosts with higher tiered plans that offer more bells and whistles.
How often authors should email their subscribers.
Different types of auto-responder series that Patty has tried.
Using the WooCommerce WordPress plug-in for managing sales and email.
Whether it’s a good idea to ask questions and invite fans to email back.

You can visit Patty’s website for information about her books, the promo page there to be notified when she does her big 99-cent multi-author promos, and join the SF/F Cross Promo Bulletin Facebook group to link up with other authors wanting to do newsletter swaps.

If you’re interested in her non-fiction, the first book in her series is Self-publishing Unboxed (The Three-year, No-bestseller Plan For Making a Sustainable Living From Your Fiction Book 1).

If you want to try out her fiction, check out the first book in her scifi Ambassador series or fantasy fans can check out the first book in her Icefire Trilogy for free.

Also, check out the earlier shows that Patty was on:

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advertising, aweber, instafreebie, mailchimp, mailing lists, marketing, patty jansen

SFFMP 167: Encouraging News from the Author Earnings Report and What’s Working at Kobo

January 23, 2018 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

The new Kobo Writing Life director, Christine Monroe, joined us to talk about the strength of indie publishing, new features relevant to authors at Kobo (including the upcoming ability to upload audiobooks via the KWL dashboard), and some positive news from the recently released Author Earnings Report.

Here are some of the specifics we covered:

How Christine came to be the new head honcho at Kobo Writing Life.
How time of year doesn’t matter that much when it comes to ebook sales (per the Author Earnings Report), so the “summer slump” is largely a myth. Christine said the week after Christmas and the month of July are big selling times for Kobo.
That, despite rumors to the contrary, indie publishing is doing better than it ever has. The AER posted the Top 50 earning authors for US sales and noted that many are newer names, so possibly authors that had early success and didn’t adapt have seen fall off, but others are carrying the torch.
75% of science fiction and fantasy book sales come via ebooks and audiobooks.
Kobo getting into the growing category of audiobooks and opportunities for indie authors who have the rights to distribute their audiobooks.
When does it make sense to invest in creating audio versions of your books?
Some best practices of successful authors on Kobo.
Taking advantage of the fact that there’s no cap on the 70% royalty and putting together giant full-series boxed sets.
Going direct with Kobo versus going through a distributor.
The kinds of advertising that are proving effective for selling books on Kobo.
Tips for authors who write stand-alone novels or only have one or two books out.
Pricing suggestions for novels on Kobo.
Languages that do well with them when it comes to foreign language translations.
Whether rapid releases and/or consistently putting out titles are effective strategies for building an audience on Kobo.

If you’re not already uploading direct to Kobo, you can do so through the Kobo Writing Life dashboard. Make sure to subscribe to the KWL blog and podcast to get tips from successful authors. They recently had one of the Bookbub representatives on their podcast, so you’ll definitely want to check out that episode.

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audiobooks, author earnings report, christine munroe, ebook sales, kobo, kobo tips

SFFMP 166: Best Price Points, Does Book Length Matter, and Tips for Selling More Books Wide with Mark Coker

January 16, 2018 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

One of our earliest guests on the podcast, almost 150 episodes ago, was Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords. We had him back on this week to talk about some of his predictions for the coming year and marketing tips derived from the 2017 annual survey of the Smashwords sales and distribution data.

Note: we had some technical issues so weren’t able to stream live, but we hope to be back at our usual time of Tuesday 6pm PT/9pm ET next week.

Here are some further details of what we discussed with Mark:

Changes in Smashwords over the last three years.
How much more successful authors are on iTunes, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, etc. when they make use of pre-orders.
Mark’s new podcast Smart Author (check out the episodes on analyzing best practices of bestselling authors and how to sell more books with pre-orders for starters).
Being careful about being too dependent on one retailer and helping to ensure other retailers stay relevant.
Data showing that, despite people forever talking about short attention spans, longer books sell better.
Some sub-genres of science fiction and fantasy that are doing well — but Mark advises that you should write what you love rather than following trends.
Which price points are most effective, and data showing that $4.99 has become more viable (if you’re charging $2.99 or $3.99, you might not lose sales by going to $4.99).
Pricing for boxed sets, whether by individual authors or as multi-author collaborations.
How many of the bestselling Smashwords authors are using free series starters.
What to do with a $500 launch budget.
Tips for selling in the Smashwords store itself.

If you want to hear more from Mark, check out the first episode he did with us: SFFMP 25: Marketing, Pre-Orders, and Distribution with Smashwords Founder Mark Coker.

Here’s his blog post from last year that includes his slides covering the 2017 Smashwords survey data.

You can visit Mark on Twitter or on the Smashwords blog. You can find more information on his Smart Author podcast here.

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adventure scifi, apple, book length, ebook prices, itunes, mark coker, pricing ebooks, selling wide, smashwords

SFFMP 165: Relaunching a Series, Bookbub Ads, and Does Podcasting Help Authors?

January 9, 2018 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

A return guest joined us on the show this week, Bryan Cohen, non-fiction author, podcaster, and author of fairy tales and superhero fiction. We talked about the fairy-tale-writing pen name he launched in 2016 and the big relaunch (including edits, new covers, and new ASINs on Amazon) he did of his first fiction series in 2017, where he turned it from a sort-of-urban fantasy series to something clearly in the superhero genre. We also discussed tips for getting the cost per click down on Bookbub ads and whether podcasting can be useful for authors.

In the end, Bryan told us about the Sell More Books Show Summit, a conference he’s helping host the first weekend of May in Chicago this year, and what prompted him to start a new conference for authors. If you’re interested in going, tickets are still on sale (with the Early Bird price good through January 12th this week).

Here are some more specific details of what we talked about:

How Bryan’s foray into fairy tales and a new pen name went.
What he learned from launching into a new genre.
How organizing and putting together a fairy tale anthology with some other well-known authors helped earn a good amount through Kindle Unlimited and also drive readers back to his novel.
Some things he wishes he had done differently when launching the pen name.
How he juggles writing fiction, hosting a podcast, and working in the author services industry with having a family.
Whether it makes sense to be a podcaster as well as an author — ie. will it sell any books?
What kind of podcast would make sense if an author was interested in starting one?
Current events in the publishing world that authors may be overreacting to.
What made Bryan decide to not only relaunch his series with new covers, blurbs, titles, and in a new genre, but also why he went back and did some major editing on the early books.
Budgetary and time concerns to think about with a relaunch.
Whether to keep your existing Amazon ASIN and book reviews or to start from scratch.
Whether it’s necessary to clear a relaunch with fans or if Bryan dealt with any blowback from readers upset by the edits.
Bookbub ads and ways to tinker to get the CTR up (and the cost per click down).
Whether Bookbub ads are more effective in some genres than others.

If you enjoyed listening to Bryan chat, you can also check him out on two of our earlier episodes:

SFFMP 15: YouTube Marketing, Facebook Events, and Increasing Mailing List Sign-Ups

SFFMP 84: Creating Better Book Descriptions (Blurbs) to Improve Your Sales with Bryan Cohen

Also, make sure to visit his site, check out his books if you like superheroes or fairy tales, and the Summit if you’re interested in going.

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book relaunch, bookbub ads, bryan cohen, fairy tales, podcasting, podcasting for authors, relaunching a series, superhero fantasy

SFFMP 163: Successfully Launching as a New Author and Is Kindle Worlds Worth It?

December 26, 2017 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Science fiction and superhero author, Jeffery H. Haskell, joined us this week to talk about his experiences with Kindle Scout, writing in two different Kindle Worlds, and launching his superhero series last summer as a relatively new author.

Here are some of the specifics of what we covered:

How Jeff honed his writing skills by ghostwriting on Upwork.
How his experience with Kindle Scout went (he published urban fantasy under a pen name).
Why he decided to try writing in a couple of different Kindle Worlds, including Lindsay’s Fallen Empire world.
Whether Kindle Worlds was useful in gaining readers that would check out his other work.
How his passion for comics led him to publish in the superhero genre.
How doing a monthly giveaway on Amazon, using their giveway program (scroll to the bottom of most books, and you can find the option to host a giveaway) helped him gather followers on Amazon, some of whom turned into buyers for his books. This turned out to be a very inexpensive form of advertising for him.
Why he went with a full-price book launch for his Book 1 and how he kept things rolling over the following months until Book 2 came out.
Whether a “publishing coach” is ever a good idea.
What we should be doing to maintain a lifelong writing career.
Suggestions for new authors starting out now.

You can visit Jeff on his website, where he’s happy to answer questions, and you can check out his first superhero novel, Arsenal, at Amazon.

If you’re in need of cover art, you can also check out Vivid Covers, which is run by Jeff’s wife, Rebekah.

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book launches, jeffrey h haskell, kindle scout, kindle worlds, superheroes

SFFMP 162: Finding Success in a Niche, When 99-cent Novels Make Sense, and Bucking Cover Trends with Amanda Milo

December 19, 2017 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Our guest this week launched her first novel in April of 2017 to great success. Amanda Milo’s science fiction romance, Stolen by an Alien, stuck in the Top 250 overall in the Amazon store for months and remained near the top of the scifi romance Top 100 too. She’s since published two more novels in the series for the rabid fanbase that she’s already established.

We brought her on to ask about how she launched to such success, why she’s continued to launch her books at 99 cents, and how she used some atypical (for the genre) cover art to find her target audience.

Here’s some of what we covered in more detail:

How Amanda launched her novel without professional editing or a cover that she loved but made it work anyway.
Combining 99 cents, Kindle Unlimited, and a story written for a niche audience to find success.
What level of sex readers are looking for in the science fiction romance category.
Some popular story types in the genre.
What readers expect from the alien abduction trope.
The challenges of writing strong female characters and balancing them with some of the romance tropes of rescues or abductions.
Using the cover, especially in romance genres, to signal to the reader what to expect as far as heat level, in particular.
Why Amanda has stuck with 99 cents so long for her books.
Whether novellas and shorter stories can work in scifi romance.
Using a Facebook page and Facebook groups to connect with readers.
Pre-orders or no pre-orders?

You can visit Amanda Milo on Facebook or check out her Amazon page to try out her novels. Her Facebook group, Amanda Milo’s Minions, is also accepting new minions.

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99 cent novels, amanda milo, Facebook groups, first book, kindle unlimited, launch success, science fiction romance

SFFMP 160: Making a Living Selling Physical Books at Conventions with Russell Nohelty

December 5, 2017 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

On this week’s show, we chatted with Russell Nohelty, who wrote for film, TV, animation, and comic books, before getting into novels a few years ago. He’s different from many of our guests in that he’s not doing much of his selling online. He makes a good living by traveling and selling his novels at conventions, thirty to forty cons a year.

We asked him all about which cons are worth going to, getting started as a newer author, getting onto panels, the costs of tables, and how to actually sell books while you’re there.

Here are some of the specifics covered in the interview:

Some of the reasons Russell likes selling at conventions, such as fewer authors that you’re competing with for attention (hundreds vs. the millions at Amazon), an opportunity to establish authority, and a chance to meet your target audience and also network with other authors.
How much you can expect to pay for a table and whether it’s better to be in Artists’ Alley or get a more expensive vendor booth in the Exhibition Hall.
When it’s okay to split the cost of a table with other authors.
Creating exclusive versions of your books for conventions (Russell uses the option at Ingram Spark to have books with different covers) and being able to charge more for them than at the bookstores.
Whether you need to be traditionally published or if anyone can buy a table.
Whether larger venues are likely to be more profitable or if it’s easier to be noticed and sell books at a smaller convention.
Collecting email addresses digitally at your table by using a tablet that signs visitors up to a list immediately.
Using giveaways of some of the popular products at the convention in order to get more list signups.
If there’s any chance at selling books if you’re introverted and not a natural salesman or saleswoman.
How many print copies of your books you should bring at a convention.
How Russell has occasionally found bookstores near the convention that will let him do signings and ship and store the books he’ll sell at the convention to them (as opposed to paying the high storage fees for the hotel or convention).
Selling USB drives with your whole library of ebooks on it for a great price to the reader that is still profitable to you.
Resources Russell mentioned for finding conventions: Convention Scene, ConCon, and Conosaurus.

Find out more about Russell and sign up to get a number of his books for free on his website.

If you’re interested in getting better at selling your work, you may want to check out Russell’s 20 minute video at Sell More Cool Things.

He’s also written the book Sell Your Soul: How to Build Your Creative Career.

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best cons to go to, conventions, how to sell at a con, lists of cons, physical books, russell nohelty

SFFMP 159: Twitter Marketing Best Practices for Authors with Jesper Schmidt

November 28, 2017 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

This week’s guest, Jesper Schmidt, is a fantasy author and also the author of non-fiction titles Fantasy Map Making and Twitter for Authors: Save Time, Get Followers, and Grow Your Email List. We haven’t had a dedicated Twitter show before, so we spent most of the hour going over tips and best practices on this sometimes challenging to understand social media platform.

Here are some of the specifics on what we covered:

How someone can be hired to draw a map for your world (fantasy or otherwise) for less than you might think.
Some of the challenges when you’re working full time and writing a novel a year.
How authors can better use Twitter to find their target readers.
Picking one day a week to schedule tweets to go out throughout the week.
Having tweets appear at all times of the day to target potential readers in other time zones.
Some of the tools that Jesper uses for scheduling, automation, tracking links, and finding followers who are likely to be interested in his books: HootSuite for a better Twitter app, SocialOomph for scheduling, Canva for creating images with text, Bitly for shortening and tracking links, and Crowdfire to find targeted people to follow.
Creating interesting content that would appeal to your target audience and then sprinkling in promotional tweets (Jesper keeps it to 1 in 10 tweets).
How Jesper uses Hootsuite to find content and relevant tweets to reply to.
Using free books or stories (with an email sign-up requirement if you’re list building) to appeal to Twitter users (you’re less likely to simply sell a book flat out).
Making use of the pinned tweet with an image/book cover and link to your freebie.
Signing up for the advertising program in order to gain access to a Twitter Card, which you can write text and a link in and give away to people who follow you.
How much time should an author be spending on Twitter each week?
Just using the free options for everything Twitter-related — Jesper hasn’t heard of an authors finding it profitable to actually pay for Twitter advertising.

You can visit Jesper in several places online, such as his author website, his series of YouTube videos for fantasy authors, and of course on Twitter. He also works on the AmWritingFantasy site with another author, and you can find numerous resources for writers.

You can pick up Twitter for Authors or Fantasy Map Making from Amazon and other stores.

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fantasy maps, hootsuite, jesper schmidt, SocialOomph, twitter, twitter advertising, twitter for authors, twitter marketing

SFFMP 158: Making the Best Use of Promo Sites with Will from Book Barbarian

November 21, 2017 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

This week, we were joined by Will Turnage, the founder of the discount book promotion site, Book Barbarian (in addition, he runs Red Roses Romance and Book Adrenaline for mysteries and thrillers). He’s also the author of three science fiction and fantasy novels, and is a fan of the genre. We asked him about some best practices for authors using promotional sites.

Here are a few of the specifics that we covered:

What it’s like writing and running a business from Cartegena, Colombia.
How Will turned from author to founder of a book promotion site, one of the first devoted to scifi and fantasy.
The challenges of building up a subscriber base and keeping new people coming in (yes, these guys have some of the same challenges that we have as authors!).
Some trends that Will has seen — what sub-genres of SF&F tend to be most popular and what types of covers work well.
How many reviews you should have before submitting your book to a site like Book Barbarian.
Whether it’s necessary to have a high normal price and deeply discount to appeal to readers.
Best practices when it comes to free books.
Ad stacking across multiple book promo sites to sell/give away more books and in the hope that your book might stick on the store sites for longer.
How often one should submit books to promo sites and when one might experience diminishing returns.

You can submit your science fiction and fantasy titles on Book Barbarian or sign up as a subscriber. You can also check out Will’s novels, Rise of the Jinn, Extermination Day, and NanoSwarm on Amazon under William Turnage.

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book barbarian, book promos, bookbub, covers, newsletters

SFFMP 157: Advanced Newsletter Tactics, Set-It-and-Forget It Automation, and Cultivating a Relationship with Your Readers with Andrea Pearson

November 14, 2017 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

We had a very informative show tonight when non-fiction and fantasy author Andrea Pearson joined us to chat about one of her passions: newsletters! (Jo, Jeff, and Lindsay don’t share this passion, so it was great to get answers from a pro.) Andrea has written more than thirty novels across three pen names and also has a series of books for authors called Self-Publish Strong.

Here are some of the details of what we covered:

Doing a big promotional push at launch or waiting until your book has a good number of reviews?
Where to get reviews when you’re a newer author (These all cost money, but Andrea mentioned Booksprout, Jim Kukral’s Review Grabber Tool, and Book Rank’s review service.)
Whether to do a big promo push all at once or spread things out over weeks.
How to get noticed on other sites if you leave KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited and go wide.
If it makes sense putting together big boxed sets or exclusive content for any particular sites.
Launch strategies for a spinoff series or novel set in a world some of your readers are already familiar with.
Why Andrea published her YA fantasy series from scratch with new ASINs when she relaunched the series.
Being aware of “black hole” ages for characters if you’re writing middle grade or YA fiction (and also that the heroes should be older than the readers they’re aimed at).
What newsletter service Andrea recommends for authors (MailChimp) and why.
The seven-email autoresponder series she has set up (when a new subscriber signs up, he/she gets the first welcome email, and then more letters in a series spread out over the next several weeks).
Whether she does a different sequence or has different lists depending on where subscribers come from (i.e. free group promo or back-of-the-book signup)?
The importance of emailing subscribers regularly to keep sales flowing — Andrea lists her books in the post script of all her emails.
Zapier.com, a service she uses to help automate and deliver her bonuses for subscribers.
What aspects of newsletter delivery shouldn’t be automated?
Using exclusive content to get people to sign up (this works better for Andrea than giving away Book 2, something readers could simply buy, for free).
Andrea recommended the Dave Ramsey EntreLeadership podcast.
What to do to hopefully keep newsletters from getting stuck over in people’s Gmail promotions tab.
Giving away bonuses from other authors as part of an incentive to get readers to buy new releases.