Category: Author Interview

SFFMP 115: Amazon’s Publishing Imprints, Self-Editing, and Better Plotting to Finish Books More Quickly

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, we chatted with YA steampunk and non-fiction author Jacqueline Garlick about her experience seeking an agent and a traditional publisher, followed by her decision to self-publish, followed by her signing her YA steampunk series (The Illumination Paradox) with Amazon’s Skyscape Imprint.

Here are are few more details on some of the things we covered:

  • Learning from trying the traditional route first, and how not getting a deal doesn’t necessarily mean your writing isn’t “good enough.”
  • Putting together an amazing cover even on a budget.
  • Getting selected for an Amazon imprint and whether to say yay or nay.
  • Some of the pros and cons of publishing with an Amazon imprint (Skycape traditionally handles YA stuff, and 47North does adult science fiction and fantasy).
  • What happens if Amazon picks up the first couple of books in your series but then passes on the next one.
  • Conventions of steampunk and whether it’s better to stick to the niche when it comes to marketing or to highlight how the story may appeal to a wider audience.
  • Tropes and things that readers look for in the steampunk genre.
  • Editing tips for making your work cleaner and more succinct.
  • Checking for when the “Story Masters” weekend seminar is in your area — Jacqueline thought it was a useful course.
  • Plotting tips to help you get everything hammered out ahead of time so you can write the novel more quickly.

You can check out Jacqueline’s first steampunk adventure on Amazon: Lumière

Also look into her books for writers: Tick-Tock Edits: How To Edit Your Own Writing: Ten Quick and Easy Tips To Strengthen Any Manuscript and Tick-Tock Plot: How to Speed-Write the Next Blockbuster eBook.

You can also visit her on her website: http://www.jacquelinegarlick.com/

 

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SFFMP 113: Advice for Newer Authors from Successful Paranormal Romance Author Anna Lowe

Author Interview, Podcast

Today we chatted with paranormal romance author Anna Lowe. She got her start in 2015, made $26,000 that first year, and then made more than $50,000 in 2016. We asked her about what it’s like for those starting new, and how she’s broken into a fairly competitive genre.

Here are a few more specifics:

  • Writing stories that can cross genres (Anna’s books can be filed under Romance > Western as well as paranormal romance) and perhaps appealing to more than once audience.
  • Focusing on shorter novels in genres that are accepting of them, so that you can publish more often, even if you’re not a super speedy writer.
  • Anna’s thoughts on jumping into a competitive genre as a newer author.
  • Tropes that people expect in PNR and whether it’s okay to turn some of them on their heads.
  • How she’s had good experiences with short stories, despite advice to ignore them in favor of writing novels.
  • Getting involved with Facebook author and fan groups as a way of finding people to network with and also potential ARC reviewers.
  • Putting together a solid ARC team and following up to make sure people are actually posting reviews.
  • Setting daily writing goals to keep the books coming out, even when you’re busy with a full-time job and a family.
  • Experimenting with audiobooks and figuring out how to market them.

Visit Anna Lowe on her website and check out her books (currently in KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited) on Amazon.

 

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SFFMP 112: Producing and Marketing Anthologies for Fun and Profit with Patrice Fitzgerald

Author Interview, Podcast

On previous shows, we’ve talked about the various ways to put short stories to use, including putting them into anthologies. But we haven’t talked much about producing multi-author anthologies of short stories–and actually making money doing it. (A lot of people edit and publish anthologies for the love of it, but turning a profit can be difficult, especially if you’re paying the authors decently for the rights to use their work.) Today we chatted with Patrice Fitzgerald, who, in addition to being an author in her own right, has published numerous science fiction anthologies–and done well with them.

Here are some of the details of what we covered:

  • The transition from attorney to author to anthology producer.
  • How Patrice is putting together mystery and science fiction anthologies that sell and make money.
  • How she approaches some of the bigger sellers in the indie community (and sometimes out of it) so she’ll have some stories from popular authors to go along with the stories from up-and-comers.
  • How she goes about recruiting those bigger names, and also how she sets up a way to receive submissions without getting too inundated by entries.
  • Whether it’s better to pay authors a flat fee or do a royalty split.
  • Whether it’s best to include stories that are completely stand alone or if they can tie into an author’s existing worlds.
  • Whether there’s an ideal length for the overall anthology and for individual stories.
  • How she gets past the bias (if there is one) against shorter fiction and sells a lot of anthologies.
  • Using Kindle Unlimited and 99 cents to launch her anthologies (and then going up to $4 or $5 the second week).
  • Gathering email addresses and starting a mailing list as a publisher and also leveraging the large lists that some of the authors have.
  • Doing a series of anthologies in a similar style as opposed to jumping all over the place.

Make sure to visit Patrice Fitzgerald on her website and check out her latest anthologies: Beyond the Stars: At Galaxy’s Edge and Mostly Murder: Till Death.

 

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SFFMP 110: Succeeding in the Super Hero Genre

Author Interview, Podcast

Today we chatted with fantasy author Timothy L. Cerepaka who branched out into superhero fiction in 2016 under the pen name Lucas Flint. He talked about how he’s had more success with the superhero stories and believes the genre is less competitive than many of the other fantasy niches.

Here are a few details of what we covered:

  • What makes a superhero novel (i.e. what are the tropes and expectations)?
  • What works well when it comes to covers?
  • What length of novel do people in this genre expect?
  • Is this a good niche for KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited?
  • How Timothy got the ball rolling in the new niche without spending much on advertising (he estimates he’s spent less than $100 all year).
  • When the big superhero movies come out, does it help with marketing similar books?
  • Is there a specific demographic that picks up these novels?
  • What price did Timothy launch his first book at, and what are his prices for the rest of the series?
  • Why he’s stopping at Book 9 and starting an all new superhero series next year.
  • What are some common mistakes made by authors in the genre?

If you have questions, let us know, or if you want to learn more about Timothy/Lucas, visit him online at http://www.lucasflint.com/ or check out his first superhero book on Amazon.

 

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SFFMP 108: Amazon Ads, Mastering Email Marketing, and Effective Social Media

Author Interview, Podcast

Today, Jo and Lindsay chatted with Tom Corson-Knowles, non-fiction author, host of the Publishing Profits podcast, and entrepreneur. He does a lot of work with authors and has seen what’s working well for branding and improving sales, so we had a good discussion, covering everything from Amazon advertising (which has recently opened up to be available to everyone, not just those exclusive with KDP Select) to email marketing to social media.

Here are a few of the highlights of what we discussed:

  • What exactly Amazon ads are and how they work for authors.
  • How much you can expect to spend and what a respectable ROI or ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales) looks like.
  • Product Display ads versus Sponsored Product Ads.
  • Keyword targeting and scaling up if you’re not getting enough impressions/clicks.
  • Making sure your cover/brand is appealing, since you’ve got to lure browsers away from the book page they’re on to click your ad.
  • Whether Amazon ads can make sense with a 99-cent book or a permafree one (and series starters versus stand alones).
  • Best practices when it comes to email marketing.
  • What your first follow-up message should look like after a new subscriber signs up.
  • The types of goodies you can give away to entice readers to sign up.
  • Whether you should start separate email lists if you branch into other genres.
  • How often you should be emailing your list as an author.
  • Whether you should worry if you get unsubscribes after sending out a newsletter.
  • If you should consider a pop-up to get more reader signups from your blog or website. (Tom uses SumoMe for handling pop-ups and signups.)
  • When it makes sense to ignore the common advice of “You have to be on Facebook” or “You have to be on Twitter.”
  • Finding ways to market online that jive with your personality and what you’re willing to do.

You can check out Tom’s courses on his site, take a peek at his books on Amazon, or subscribe to his podcast.

 

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SFFMP 107: Writing and Selling in the Underserved LGBT Fantasy Niche with Shiriluna Nott and SaJa H

Author Interview, Podcast

On today’s show, we chatted with Shiriluna Nott and SaJa H, authors of the epic fantasy series The Chronicles of Arden. They’ve got some LGBT heroes in the story, so we wanted to ask them about some of the writing and marketing challenges (and perks!) that come with the niche.

Here are a few more details of what we covered:

  • Moving from fan fiction to self-publishing.
  • Whether there are any reader expectations with spec-fic LGBT stories (i.e. romance or graphic sex or for the sexual orientation to be a big focus in the story).
  • If it’s necessary to warn readers if there’s going to be a non-traditional relationship in the story, even if there’s nothing explicit.
  • For those with an interest, is LGBT fantasy/science fiction an underserved niche that might be less competitive and easier to get noticed in than the more mainstream spec-fic categories?
  • Are there any unique writing or marketing challenges?
  • Are there any sites that specialize in mentioning LGBT spec-fiction books? (They mentioned QueerSciFi.com.)

You can find their books on Amazon or visit Shiriluna on her website or Facebook. You can also visit Saja on Facebook.

 

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SFFMP 106: Writing a Novel in Five Days with Scott King

Author Interview, Podcast

Since it’s NaNoWriMo month, we invited Scott King to talk about how he wrote a novel in five days (and then wrote a book about how he did it, also in five days). In addition to holding down a day job as a board game photographer, Scott is the author of several middle grade fantasy novels, a thriller, and a couple of non-fiction titles, including this newest one. We asked him what his process was for writing the novel in five days and tried to milk some tips out of him too.

Some details of what we covered:

  • What’s the state of the middle grade fiction market when it comes to self-publishing and ebooks?
  • Why Scott shifted to adult epic fantasy and thrillers.
  • Whether outlining is important when writing a novel quickly.
  • Staying excited when you’re struggling to get past the middle point of the novel.
  • Getting in the habit of finishing projects.
  • How you optimize your workflow to be more efficient.
  • Whether mindset matters when it comes to writing and finishing novels.
  • How much of Scott’s five days go to prep and revision.
  • How long it takes to refill the creative tank after writing a novel so quickly.
  • How to keep novels shorter and simpler to make them easier to finish (and why you might want to, even you epic fantasy folks).
  • Dealing with distractions and writers’ block.
  • Some of the challenges of genre hopping.

You can visit Scott King on his website and grab The 5 Day Novel on Amazon. You can also check out the novel he wrote in five days, Ameriguns.

 

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SFFMP 105: A Successful Stand Alone YA Fantasy Novel Launch and Building a Big Mailing List

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, we chatted with Megan Crewe, a YA author who shifted from traditional publishing to self-publishing for her latest release, a contemporary YA fantasy with Asian flare, A Mortal Song. She was launching this as a stand alone, with no future series planned, so we asked her how she went about having a good launch with a single title.

** Note, we had a tech problem with Google Hangouts cutting the show out early. Sorry about that. It’s just the last few minutes that are missing.

Here are a few more details on what we covered:

  • Whether Asian-inspired fantasy is challenging to market since it’s a smaller niche.
  • The challenges of launching a stand alone novel versus a Book 1 in a new series.
  • Pricing strategies for launch.
  • Building up a big mailing list quickly with giveaways.
  • Doing mailing list swaps with other authors in your genre.
  • Megan’s KBoards thread about her launch and the sponsorship sites she booked.
  • Marketing for traditionally published books versus indie books.
  • Genre hopping under the science fiction and fantasy umbrella.
  • Pre-orders when launching a book that’s exclusive with Amazon (KDP Select), yay or nay?
  • Publishing a paperback ahead of time to enable early reviews on your Kindle book page.
  • Strategies for getting early reviews.

Interested in learning more about Megan or checking out her books? Visit her on her website or check her out on Amazon. You can also find A Mortal Song on Amazon.

 

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SFFMP 104: Competing in the Crowded Urban Fantasy Genre with Domino Finn

Author Interview, Podcast

Tough guy urban fantasy author Domino Finn joins Lindsay and Jeff this week to analyze urban fantasy, talk about why his series took off, why others don’t, and what some of the expected tropes are in the genre.

Here’s some of what we covered:

  • Analyzing the market to figure out why your books aren’t selling, then readjusting and launching a new series that’s more in line with expectations.
  • Finding an underserved market within a very popular and competitive genre.
  • Launching a book and having it stick on Amazon even without a lot of advertising dollars behind it.
  • Why Domino broke the mold and went with a first-person blurb for Dead Man.
  • Writing to market versus writing something that’s original and you with some marketable elements.
  • Can posting on forums actually help sell books?
  • Domino’s experiences with going wide, and why he’s sticking with KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited for now.
  • Putting together an anthology/boxed set with other authors writing the same type of UF and contributing original content.
  • Predictions for where the genre might go next.

You can visit Domino Finn at his website and check out his first Black Magic Outlaw book, Dead Man, on Amazon. If you’d like to try the anthology he’s in with several other authors, it’s only 99 cents right now on Amazon: Full Metal Magic.

 

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SFFMP 103: From Spy Thrillers to Bestselling Military Science Fiction with Richard Fox

Author Interview, Podcast

Military science fiction author (and former spy thriller author) Richard Fox joined us on the show today. We talked about his early books and his thriller series, which never impressed him hugely with sales, and then how he moved onto a different genre last year. In June, 2015, he published his first Ember War military sci-fi title and has since gone on to publish a total of 8 novels in the series. They’ve sold great, and he has over 400 reviews of his first book.

Here’s some of what we covered:

  • Transitioning from historical fiction to spy thrillers to space adventure novels (and whether those audiences will cross over at all).
  • What made Richard decide to genre hop over to science fiction.
  • How he learned from some of his mistakes on his first series to have a solid launch with the Ember War books.
  • How he’s used his military experience in his novels.
  • Finishing one series and starting a spinoff as another entry point for potential readers.
  • Using Facebook ads on a slow trickle to keep sales up of a Book 1 that’s been out for a while.
  • How Richard’s Kindle Unlimited borrow money compares to his book sales and why he hasn’t gone wide.
  • What Richard’s first launch looked like, and what he’s doing with new books today to get his readers to buy right away.

You can visit Richard on his site or say hello to him on Facebook. Try the first book in his Ember War series on Amazon.

 

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