Podcast – Page 17 – Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

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

December 29, 2015 SFFpodcast 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+.

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

December 15, 2015 SFFpodcast 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.

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ARCs, book launch, fantasy, fictionpress, review copies, street teams, ya fantasy

SFFMP 59: Pricing Ebooks for Success (and sales!)

December 8, 2015 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

On today’s show, we discussed just about everything we could think of related to ebook pricing. What should the standard price for a novel be? Is it ever worth doing a 99-cent ebook launch? Should you ever price an ebook above $5? What’s the point where you can maximize income? How long after launch should you wait to run a sale? Are we past the era where pricing at 99 cents can help a book to “stick” on Amazon? Should you do anything different with your pricing when it comes to international markets?

All of these topics and many more are in the show, so take a listen!

Also, for those interested in Patty’s group SF/F/H promos, you can sign up on her site.

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99-cents, bookbub, ebook pricing, ent, marketing ebooks, permafree, pricing

SFFMP 58: Marketing Stand Alone Novels and Different Types of Series

December 1, 2015 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

Today, we answered some reader questions/comments about bank accounts for your self-publishing business and making your author site mobile friendly, and then we jumped into discussing marketing strategies for stand alone novels, as well as several different types of series.

The main types of series we discussed are:

Series with continuing characters where each novel is a complete story
Series where there is an overarching storyline with multiple plot threads that only get wrapped up in the final book
Series with major romance elements that have different characters and happily ever afters in each novel.

Naturally, we spoke of everything in a science fiction and fantasy context. Even though some of these series types are more popular in other genres, there are definitely plenty of examples in SF & F. We talked about the pros and cons when it comes to marketing each.

Here are the links that listener Will Norman gave us for checking to see if your website is mobile-friendly (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/) and also for getting pop-up newsletter forms to add to your website: https://sumome.com/

Don’t forget to check out Jo’s first book… in German!

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epic fantasy, fantasy, marketing series, marketing stand alone novels, science fiction, series, stand alone novels

SFFMP 57: Cover Design That Sells Books with Sylvia Frost

November 24, 2015 SFFpodcast 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!

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book covers, cover art, cover art cost, cover design, good cover design, trad publishing covers

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

November 17, 2015 SFFpodcast 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).

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indie publishing, small press, starting your own press, trad publishing, world building

SFFMP 55: Launch Strategies, Pitfalls of Being Prolific, and How to Know When a Book Is Ready

November 10, 2015 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

Tonight we were joined by a fan of the show and fellow podcaster, Edward Giordano. For a change, he interviewed us, asking questions he had as a new author. We hope our answers will be useful to some of you, as well!

Here’s some of what we went over:

How to get books and ebooks into libraries (Here’s the interview with the librarian that Lindsay mentioned.)
Keeping characters/settings/themes fresh when you’re prolific and you’re publishing a lot of books
How to launch your first book or books as a new author
Whether KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited is the way to go as a new author
Whether Facebook or in-person launch parties are worth doing
If it’s your first book, how do you know if it’s ready to be published?
Making short stories or novelettes profitable
How to know if a story idea is worth pursuing
Are paperbacks and audiobooks worth the time and cost of producing them?
Are in-person events worth it for selling books?

Edward hasn’t published his first book yet, but you can visit his SciFan Podcast, where he and his host chat about science fiction and fantasy books and television shows.

Edward also mentioned a helpful book that you might like to check out: Nail Your Story: Add Tension, Build Emotion, and Keep Your Readers Addicted (Growth Hacking For Storytellers #2)

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audiobooks, createspace, facebook launch parties, getting books into libraries, ingram sparks, kdp select, kindle unlimited, launch strategies, launching your first book, short stories

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

November 3, 2015 SFFpodcast 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.

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book marketing, epic fantasy, marketing, publishing, self publishing, traditional publishing

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

October 27, 2015 SFFpodcast 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.

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amazon, fantasy, jill nojack, kindle scout, paranormal

SFFMP 52: Collaborating and Organizing Multi-Author Boxed Sets with J Thorn

October 20, 2015 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Tonight we talked with horror and dark fantasy author J Thorn. He’s sold over 130,000 ebooks since coming on the scene a few years ago, and he’s collaborated with more authors than Lindsay can count without taking off her shoes. We asked him why he’s collaborating with so many folks, some of the challenges and pitfalls (and perks), and then we interrogated him on boxed sets, both bundles he’s done of his own series and multi-author boxed sets that he’s organized.

Here are a few more details on what we discussed:

Challenges of epic fantasy versus dark fantasy/horror
Networking online as an introvert
Forming collaboration teams (finding people whose strengths match your weaknesses and vice versa)
Handling finances when you’re collaborating or paying other authors for multi-author boxed sets
Some of the challenges of approaching higher selling authors and getting them to be involved in boxed sets or joint projects
Whether multi-author boxed sets are still effective, or if the market too saturated
Boxing up your own trilogies or series starters and making it look like an even better deal by adding some related short stories or novellas
The more options you have for marketing and promotion as your back catalogue grows (the more titles you have, the less emotionally attached you are to one)
Podcasting for promotional benefit — can it work? (J runs the Horror Writers Podcast and Dark Arts Theater)