Podcast – Page 20 – Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

SFFMP 30: Writing and Selling Science Fiction Romance with Anna Hackett

May 12, 2015 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Tonight we interviewed the prolific Anna Hackett, a science fiction romance author from Perth Australia, who has a number of series going. She started with traditional publishing but soon shifted to self-publishing, and she has plenty to talk about for folks who are thinking of adding romance to their science fiction or fantasy.

Here’s some of what we touched on:

Working romance into your science fiction/fantasy — any pitfalls or advantages?
Going from traditional publishing to self-publishing
The benefits of writing in a small niche
Watching successful authors in your niche to see what they’re doing for marketing
Advice for new authors looking to self-publish
Tips for being prolific
What kind of cover art works best for science fiction with romance in it?
Using a free novella to encourage people to sign up for your newsletter
Are blog tours ever worth it?
The challenges of advertising “science fiction romance” when there’s never a category for it on the sponsorship sites such as Bookbub and Ereader News Today
Marketing tips for those who don’t have a big advertising budget

If you want to learn more, you can find Anna on her website, Twitter, and Facebook. If you like romance in your science fiction, you can check out the first book in her Hell Squad series for free. You can also grab one of her Phoenix Adventures novellas, Beneath a Trojan Moon, for free.

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anna hacket, bundles, ereader news today, marketing science fiction, paranormal romance, podcasts, science fiction romance

SFFMP 29: Increasing Writing Speed and Publishing More Books

May 5, 2015 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

For today’s show, we talked about how we’ve learned to write more efficiently and get more books out there. After all, a lot of the marketing stuff we discuss on this show becomes more effective when you have numerous books, and maybe even numerous series, out there. It’s also easier to keep the momentum going if you have new adventures coming out every few months.

Here’s some of what we covered:

How each of us approaches plotting and whether we outline or pants
Whether we write down the “beats” for individual scenes before starting on them
Lots of tips that we’ve all learned for hitting our daily word count goals and staying on task
Tips from the book 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You love.
How over-editing can slow you down (and may not be that useful in the end)
How a series can make everything easier, since you’ve already established the characters and done the world building.
Dealing with being daunted by a story idea
Finding motivation to write every day and staying motivated for the long run
How to get readers to try a new series, especially if you jump genres
Ways of storing or backing up your work in the cloud and writing from anywhere

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editing, improving writing, word count, writing, writing more

SFFMP 28: Marketing Steampunk and Working with a Small Press with AW Exley

April 28, 2015 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Tonight we talked to AW Exley, the author of the popular steampunk adventures, The Artifact Hunters. She hails from rural New Zealand and signed on with Curiosity Quills, a small press, to start out. She’s since started publishing some of her work independently and spoke to us about the differences in marketing and control. Here’s a quick look at some of what we covered:

Advantages of going with a small press when you’re starting out
Why AW Exely decided to self-publish her more recent books
Spending time on social media and marketing versus just writing the next book in a series
The challenges of growing a private mailing list when a publisher is handling the backmatter (and putting their own newsletter link in)
The advantages of wearing a corset when pimping books to the steampunk audience. 😉 (And will Jo buy a corset or will he not?)
Tips for new writers
Dealing with bad reviews
Thoughts on what makes a good cover in the steampunk genre (and overused images/ideas)
Being the big fish in the small pond and choosing a smaller category on Amazon

You can check out AW’s first book, Nefertiti’s Heart (The Artifact Hunters Book 1), and visit her on Twitter or Facebook.

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aw exley, marketing, small press, steampunk

SFFMP 27: Running Newsletters (how, why, and tips), Entering Contests, and StoryBundle’s NaNoWriMo Opportunity

April 21, 2015 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

Hey, everyone! Tonight Jo, Jeff, and Lindsay devoted most of the show to discussing newsletters. What host do they use (or in Jeff’s case, how he does it himself with a WordPress plug-in), how often do they send out letters, what do they write about, how they use affiliate links to monitor sales (and make some extra money), and how to get readers to sign up in the first place.

Here are some more highlights, as well as the links that were mentioned in the show:

A new release from Jeffrey Poole.
Jo is experimenting with long-term pre-orders and will update us on how it went later.
Our FREE epic fantasy bundle (all three of us are in it, along with five other authors). Check it out if you haven’t already.
Mailing list hosts that Jo and Lindsay use: MailChimp and Aweber.
The WordPress plug-in that Jeffrey uses to host his own list.
How we get readers to sign up (links in afterwords, forms on website, etc.)
Joanna Penn’s great article on how she tripled the size of her mailing list.
How Mark Dawson uses Facebook ads to grow his list effectively and profitably. (This is a podcast interview with the Self Publishing Podcast guys and well worth listening to; Mark comes on about 30 minutes into the show.)
How often we send out newsletters and what we say.
Using autoresponders to do more than thank the reader for signing up.
The NaNoWriMo StoryBundle contest (for more on how SB works, check out our early episode with StoryBundle’s founder, Jason Chen). Email submissions to nanosubmissions@storybundle.com (but make sure you check the site for the details and guidelines first).
Are contests ever worth entering? Some links below on what to look for before sending anyone any money for a contest:
Finding active contests, as well as links to pro, semi-pro, and paying markets at Ralan.com.

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contests, marketing, NaNoWriMo, newsletters, self publishing, storybundle

SFFMP 26: Self-Publishing and Marketing Tips for Children’s Genre Fiction with Ben Zackheim

April 14, 2015 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Tonight we chatted with Ben Zackheim, middle-grade fantasy author, or “writer of smart books for smart children.” He’s worn a lot of hats in his working life and a few years ago switched from the game industry to self-publishing his own novels. He’s also a teacher at the School of Visual Arts in NYC, where he shows creative people how to market their work. You can say hi to him on Twitter and check out the first book in his Camelot Kids series on Amazon.

Here’s a little of what we talked about tonight:

The challenges of marketing middle-grade books
How independent publishing differs from film-making and video game creation
Working with artists for quality covers and possibly in-book material
Thoughts on blogging, social media, and “building a platform”
How many people are overlooking local markets in their marketing attempts
Utilizing visual artwork to help sell your books (Don’t have any? Commission some for your world and your character.)
Costly ads and other marketing schemes that should be avoided
Focusing on a series and publishing regularly
Is it worth trying to target fans of a popular series by writing something similar?
Getting a table at conventions and selling directly to your target audience
Amazon ads (and what analytics Amazon shares with authors) — will they be better in the future?

http://traffic.libsyn.com/marketingsff/SFFMP-026_-_Book_Marketing_with_Ben_Zackheim.mp3?hc_location=ufi

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children's books, children's ebooks, conventions, marketing children's books, marketing trends, mg fiction, selling to geeks, social media

SFFMP 25: Marketing, Pre-Orders, and Distribution with Smashwords Founder Mark Coker

April 7, 2015 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Tonight, we had Smashwords founder Mark Coker on the show, and he gave us a lot of great information on working the pre-order system on Apple, Barnes & Noble, etc., marketing on Smashwords and sites it distributes to, and selling more books overall. Here are some of the highlights of the interview:

How Mark’s book, The Boobtube, led him to create Smashwords back in 2008
How to take advantage of pre-orders on Smashwords, Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo, etc. (Unlike with Amazon, you get a big boost on release day, because the orders accumulate and all count toward your Day 1 sales.)
Possibly getting extra merchandizing love with retailers such as Apple, based on strong pre-order interest and early sales
New features coming to the Smashwords pre-order system, such as assetless pre-orders (so you don’t need to have the finished manuscript in order to make your book available for order)
Don’t worry — no penalties at Smashwords for missed deadlines on pre-orders, but you can upload up to 12 months ahead, so you can give yourself plenty of time
Getting books into libraries through Smashwords (OverDrive/Library Direct) and Mark’s thoughts on new sites such as EbooksAreForever.com.
Why still use a distributor? Makes it easy to get books out without having to be on each platform (on Barnes & Noble, you actually end up making more on books priced under $2.99)
Scribd, Oyster, and other smaller retailers that you can only get into via a distributor
The Smashwords affiliate program (getting other people to plug your book for you — and giving them an incentive to do so)
Common mistakes Mark sees authors making
Are permafree series starters still working?
What’s coming next to Smashwords

Whether you use Smashwords or not, you might gain something from checking out Mark’s helpful books: Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success (Amazon | Smashwords) and Smashwords Book Marketing Guide – How to Market any Book for Free (Amazon | Smashwords)

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apple, barnes and noble, distribution, ebook distributors, kobo, mark coker, marketing, pre-orders, self publishing, smashwords, why do pre-orders

SFFMP 24: Why Reviews Are So Important, Getting Them Early On, and Dealing with Bad Reviews

March 31, 2015 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

Today Lindsay had some laggy internet going on, so naturally we did a show with just the three of us, where we all needed to talk a lot! With a few more pauses than usual, we discussed all aspects of book reviews: why you need them, how to get them, and how to deal with those pesky 1-stars. Here are a few more specifics of what we covered:

Why it’s so important to get reviews (social proof, proof for advertisers, and also possibly getting a bump from the Amazon algorithms for lots of reviews right after a release)
Things we did to get reviews of our early books and whether give aways and blog tours are worth it
What we’re doing now, as more established authors, to get reviews, especially for new series and new genres we may be exploring
Looking beyond Amazon to Goodreads and getting reviews in the other stores
How we deal with bad reviews
Whether we think you should ever respond to reviews
Ways to possibly make a bad review work in your favor

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amazon reviews, bad reviews, getting reviews, goodreads

SFFMP 23: Marketing Dark Fantasy, Writing in a Series, and Selling Novellas

March 24, 2015 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Tonight we had dark fantasy author Becca Andre on the show. She’s a relatively new author with three novels and two novellas out so far in her Final Formula series (the first ebook is free at Amazon, Smashwords, and other retailers if you want to check it out), but she’s gotten off to a great start.

Here’s some of what we talked about with her:

Writing and publishing while working a full time job and being a mom
The usefulness of writing workshops when you’re getting started
Branding the covers in a series and choosing an Amazon category (and even cover design) based on what’s less competitive (assuming a couple of options would work)
Novellas related to one’s main series and whether they’re worth doing or if readers are mainly interested in novels in the SF/F genre
Pricing for novellas versus novels
Effective ways of marketing a series, such as whether to focus on advertising the first book all the time or whether to spend money on plugging new releases too
Writing to a “key demographic” versus just writing what you want
Launching your very first novel at 99 cents so there’s less of a barrier to entry for potential readers
What to do as an author on Twitter and Facebook (i.e. posting snippets, updates, book news, etc.)
Using a Goodreads Giveaway (of a physical paperback) to get people to add the book and leave reviews there
Trying giveaways at times other than during a book launch, such as between books to generate interest and keep your name out there
Giving away a free “alternate PoV scene” to entice people to sign up for your newsletter

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99 cent novels, bookbub, dark fantasy, marketing fantasy, novellas, novels, permafree

SFFMP 22: Book Bundles, Marketing Successes and Failures, and Creating Author Swag

March 19, 2015 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

We’re late getting a show up this week, but we are here! Tonight Jeff, Lindsay, and Jo chatted amongst themselves, covering a number of topics such as…

How Jeffrey had good luck boosting his sales by tinkering with keywords on Amazon.
How Jo making his first book temporarily free helped boosted sales of his Book 2 preorder.
How Lindsay increased sales on her omnibus by redoing the cover and blurb.
A few marketing/publishing things that ended up being a waste of time, or at least not very profitable for the time invested.
Our experiences with multi-author book bundles of which we’ve been a part.
Can too many authors make a multi-author bundle less effective? Can too few sabotage the potential? What’s the right number?
How Lindsay got a lot more interest in one of her series by putting together a bundle of the first three books.
Why the guys decided to put together a permafree epic fantasy book bundle with a few other authors
Jo’s experiments with creating 3D book swag on Shapeways.com and ordering blook plates for signings from Bookplate Ink.

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book bundles, marketing, marketing tips, swag

SFFMP 21: Marketing and Publishing Comedic Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Co-Writing, and Rocking It with Twitter

March 11, 2015 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

In today’s episode, we talked to John P. Logdson and Chris Young, a comedic fantasy and science fiction writing duo. We covered a lot of ground. Here are some of the highlights:

Any special challenges with writing humor/comedy?
Dealing with one-star reviews from people who don’t “get” the humor
Collaboration — who does what and how do you manage to put out cohesive novels?
Does collaboration offer any advantages over titles written by a single author?
Can any writers collaborate well, or does it take a special personality and/or a certain skill set?
Writing to target less competitive categories on Amazon
Tricks for producing books more quickly
Should you mention that the books are humorous or comedic in the blurb or on the cover? So people looking for serious fiction won’t accidentally grab them?
Are there any marketing advantages to writing fantasy/science fiction comedy?
How to set up your tweets to market successfully on Twitter (effective hashtag use and Hashtagify for seeing what’s popular or trending + BookLinker to send readers from different countries to the right store)
Twitter groups and networking with other authors in a smart way
Marketing/advertising on Facebook, Goodreads, and using giveaways
The types of marketing John and Chris have tried and that hasn’t done well + what has worked
What they do to encourage newsletter signups
A new site for crowdfunding/getting pre-orders specifically for authors: Publishizer.

Tools they use for collaboration: Scrivener, Trelby (screenwriting program), and Dropbox.

Want to check out their work?

For more character-driven stories, try Starliner or the Land of Ononokin books. For more humor, check out Platoon-F. They’ve got a new project coming soon as well, a book called Queen Aurthur, a different (very different) take on the King Aurthur story. You can get in touch with them or find out more at their site, Crimson Myth.