SFFMP 94: Putting Together an ARC Team, Getting Lots of Reviews, and Publishing More Often with Anna Hackett

Author Interview, Podcast

Science fiction romance and adventure romance author, Anna Hackett, regularly has 80-100 reviews on her books within a few days of release. We asked her about how she created a great team of reviewers who get early copies and leave prompt reviews. She’s also increased her productivity substantially in the last couple of years and often publishes a short novel each month now, so we asked her about that too.

Here are a few more specifics on what we covered:

  • Mining your existing readers/newsletter subscribers to find people for a review team (and how to get started building that mailing list if yours doesn’t have many subscribers yet)
  • The logistics of contacting reviewers with advanced review copies and making sure they can download the ebooks to their readers of choice.
  • How many reviews you should be shooting for with a new release
  • Increasing productivity by giving yourself deadlines (even if you don’t have to publish on a certain day)
  • Writing shorter novels, if it makes sense for your style and your genre
  • Keeping all the balls in the air when juggling multiple series
  • Tips for newer authors trying to get those early reviews
  • Focusing on writing and publishing books as the most effective form of marketing
  • Whether there’s a downside to giving away review copies to readers who likely would have purchased the books
  • Do book giveaways and contests help garner more reviews?

If Anna’s books sound interesting to you, she has several permafree adventures that you can check out:

Among Galactic Ruins (Phoenix Adventures — space romance)

Marcus (Hell Squad, Book 1 — dystopian romance)

Time Thief (Anomaly Series, Book 1)

Anna also has a boxed set available for free if you visit her site and sign up for her newsletter.

 

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SFFMP 93: Straddling Genres and Succeeding with Multiple Different Series with Rachel Aaron

Author Interview, Podcast

Popular fantasy author Rachel Aaron joined us today to talk about succeeding with books that straddle genres, launching later books in a series, and turning your writing into a business, among other topics.

Here are a few more subjects that we touched on:

  • The challenges of writing across genres and marketing books that don’t fit tidily into a category
  • Rachel’s experiments with advertising and what has worked best
  • Using a pre-order to increase sales of an entire series and how to build launch buzz over several weeks
  • Some of the perks of being in Kindle Unlimited (Rachel explains why she believes KU readers are less likely to leave bad reviews)
  • How audiobooks have become a significant source of income for Rachel
  • The challenges of maintaining a high degree of productivity after this becomes a full-fledged business

Visit Rachel on her site, check out the fan art she mentioned, or take a peek at her first Heartstrikers book on Amazon.

 

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SFFMP 92: How to Use KDP Select to Sell More Books with Susan Kaye Quinn

Author Interview, Podcast

We got a lot of great information from today’s return guest, science-fiction and paranormal romance author, Susan Kaye Quinn. In addition to writing genre fiction, she’s penned For Love or Money, a book that talks about the ongoing debate on whether to write to the market, to write your passion, or to try and find the spot where the two areas mesh.

Since Susan has been doing a number of experiments with Amazon’s KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited promotions lately, we focused on that during the show, trying to find the information that would help authors work KU to their advantage and do better with the promotions available to those in the program.

Here are a few specifics we covered:

  • Being wide (in all the stores) and having a permafree title versus being in KDP Select with a 99-cent title
  • How to have a successful free run while in KDP Select and why “getting the attention of borrowers” matters more than anything else
  • How borrowers are almost like an entirely different store with their own eco-system
  • What to do if you’ve been wide and are bringing older titles into KDP Select
  • What some of the problems might be if your books just aren’t selling as well as you wish
  • Figuring out if a book or genre is a good match for KDP Select
  • Whether pre-orders are a good idea when you’re in KDP Select and you’re relying on borrows (which can’t roll in until the book is live)
  • Dealing with readers who might be upset if you switch from being in all the stores to being exclusive with Amazon
  • Figuring out whether you should give KDP Select a try based on how well you’re doing in other stores
  • Whether you should save up books and launch them in a cluster or try to stagger them to release over time
  • Places to advertise KDP Select titles

Stop by Susan’s site, check out her books on Amazon, and sign up for her popular For Love or Money group on Facebook. Lindsay is there as are many other indie authors.

Also check out Susan’s previous appearance on the show if you haven’t already: Episode 36.

 

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SFFMP 91: Set-It-and-Forget-It Marketing and Selling Well in Non-Amazon Bookstores

Group Discussion, Podcast

Today, Jeff, Jo, and Lindsay talked about their strategies for selling books in the non-Amazon bookstores, such as Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Smashwords, and Apple. They also discussed some of the tactics they’ve used over the years that they would consider “set it and forget it marketing.” These are things they did once and that have continued to result in book sales month in and month out.

They also addressed some listener questions about Amazon ebook giveaways and setting up author newsletters. (Here’s a link to the WordPress plug-in that Jeff uses: Newsletter.)

Lindsay went into some details about the successful launch of her recent science fiction series, including the promos she scheduled and how and why she went about creating a new mailing list just for the sci-fi.

Here are the promo sites she used (these will accept new releases, but sometimes require that an author have previously published books with good reviews): Fussy Librarian, Ereader News Today, Books Butterfly, Free Kindle Books and Tips, and Bknights. Lindsay forgot to mention it, but ENT and Books Butterfly were the most worth it in terms of delivering sales, at least for her title in this case.

Links to Jo’s DeviantArt people:

The digital sculptor of Squee the Funk was Liz Landis.

The Sculptor that won the acclaim on DA was Viistar, and here’s the post of Jo’s project: http://viistar.deviantart.com/art/Ivy-Turn-620932412

 

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SFFMP 90: From Struggling to Find an Audience to the Top 1000 on Amazon with John L. Monk

Author Interview, Podcast

This week’s guest, John L. Monk, is the author of The Jenkins Cycle and Thief’s Odyssey, cross-genre books that never sold as well as he wished, despite marketing efforts. About six weeks ago, he published Hell’s Children, a book firmly entrenched in the post-apocalyptic genre. He took some ideas from Chris Fox’s Launch to Market book and managed to release into the Top 1000 on Amazon for the first time, and his book has stuck and continued to sell well even after the dreaded “30 Day Cliff.”

Here are a few things we touched on:

  • The challenges of marketing cross-genre fiction
  • Making life (and marketing) easier by writing in specific genres with commercial appeal
  • Why John chose post-apocalyptic fiction for his new book
  • Staggering your book launch so that you’re selling some copies every day instead of firing everything off at once
  • Making acquaintances with other authors and networking so that they might mention your book to their Facebook followers or mailing lists
  • Launching into KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited and at 99 cents for the first week
  • Why putting fancy new covers on books that weren’t well targeted in a specific genre might not make much of a difference
  • Keeping readers interested in older titles
  • John’s experience with being wide and having an Apple rep and why he ultimately enrolled in KDP Select
  • Working with other authors on an anthology or joint project to spread the word about your work to new readerships

You can find John at his website, on Facebook, or check out his books on Amazon. You can also look into his new joint project, American Demon Hunters. Thanks for listening!

 

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SFFMP 89: Launching Books to Stick, Amazon Algorithms, and When Advertising Is Worth it with Chris Fox

Author Interview, Podcast

Today, we talked about launching books, writing to market, taking advantage of Amazon algorithms, and when advertising is (and isn’t) worth it with return guest Chris Fox.

Here are some of the specifics that we covered:

  • How Amazon works to push new releases (that show potential) with its algorithms, newsletters, and also-boughts system
  • How important being in KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited is right now to stick on Amazon with a new book
  • Whether to list a book for pre-order
  • Whether it makes sense to use Facebook and Amazon ads (available for those in KDP Select) during a book launch or afterward, to keep the momentum going
  • Relaunching a series that had a lackluster original launch
  • How much pricing figures into a book launch and whether starting at 99 cents is a good idea to gain momentum
  • Using a prequel to grow a mailing list

Check out Chris’s first military science fiction novel, Destroyer, on Amazon, or pick up his latest non-fiction title, Launch to Market.

You can also visit his YouTube channel for some inspiring and helpful videos.

 

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SFFMP 88: Using Free Ebooks to Grow Your Mailing List and Increase Readership with Bookfunnel’s Damon Courtney

Author Interview, Podcast

We’re joined today by Damon J. Courtney, heroic fantasy author and the founder of Bookfunnel.com, a service that Jo and Lindsay use to distribute eARCs to readers and bonus goodies for newsletter subscribers. Since Damon sees a lot of free ebooks and how people are using them, we decided to ask him about trends and strategies for using our freebies to increase our readerships and grow mailing list subscribers.

Here are a few more details of what we covered:

  • The challenges of getting ebooks onto readers’ devices without going through Amazon or the various retailers.
  • A popular tactic for getting newsletter sign-ups as an author with at least three books out: making the first book permafree everywhere and making Book 2 free available to those who sign up for your list
  • Using exclusive content (such as prequels or unpublished epilogues) to entice people to sign up who otherwise might just pay for the books that are available elsewhere (also an alternative to giving away an entire novel)
  • Occasionally doing between-the-novels short stories or bonus scenes to keep newsletter subscribers on your list (so they don’t just grab their free book and unsubscribe)
  • Doing a round-robin multi-book giveaway with other authors in your genre so your book is exposed to other authors’ lists of subscribers
  • Thoughts on periodic price drops to free versus having a permafree title out there
  • Is there a danger in over-distributing a free ebook?

You can check out Damon’s first book, Baptism of Blood and Fire, Dragon Bond 1 on Amazon, and sign up for Bookfunnel at their site.

 

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SFFMP 87: Writing and Selling Short Fiction That Actually Sells with T.S. Paul

Author Interview, Podcast

Science fiction author T.S. Paul joins us to discuss how he’s sold thousands of copies of his short fiction since getting started just over four months ago. Not only that, but he sells those ebooks at 2.99 instead of employing the typical bargain basement pricing. He’s publishing in the space opera field and gaining momentum by putting out new ebooks every two weeks. He’s currently in KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited, so he’s also getting a lot of borrows on those books too.

Here’s a little more on what we covered:

  • Using an on-going series to make shorter fiction work and keep people coming back for more
  • Selling short fiction ebooks at 2.99 (and collections at 7.99)
  • Whether more people buy or borrow (for those in Kindle Unlimited) at the higher price points
  • If short fiction is still doing well now that KU pays based on page reads instead of straight-up borrows
  • Publishing character interviews and short fiction on your blog to keep up reader interest between releases
  • Using Canva to create images for Facebook ads
  • Making Facebook ads work for science fiction
  • Do bad reviews actually affect sales?
  • Getting troll reviews taken down on Amazon
  • Finding original artwork on Deviant Art and licensing it to use for your ebook covers (T.S. finds this much more affordable than commissioning custom artwork, and it gets you something far more original than grabbing images from stock photo sites)

Check out T.S. Paul’s books on Amazon and visit his blog to see what he’s up to.

 

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SFFMP 86: Improving to a Full-Time Income, Organizing Group Promos, and Succeeding at Publishing Wide with Patty Jansen

Author Interview, Podcast

We chatted with return-guest Patty Jansen this week, a science fiction and fantasy author who’s gone from a part-time income to a full-time income since we interviewed her in 2015. She’s also started running some very popular group promotions for SF&F authors, and we asked about the nuts and bolts of that, as well as if it’s been useful for improving her bottom line and selling more of her own books.

Here’s a little more of what we covered:

  • The challenges of splitting focus between multiple series and genres
  • Planning ahead (how far) and committing to publishing installments in series
  • Wrapping up series that aren’t huge sellers and focusing on ones that show more potential
  • How Patty’s big SF/F promo has evolved to have more than 500 authors and 4500 reader newsletter subscribers
  • The nuts and bolts of how her promos work
  • Curating a big promo and keeping it a good value for both readers and writers
  • Some of the pitfalls of trying KU, especially as an Australian author, and why Patty is staying wide for now
  • Whether new covers on older books are worth it
  • Staggering a launch to try and make a book sticky on Amazon
  • Trying to target less frequently targeted countries with Facebook advertising

You can check out Patty’s work on her website and sign up for the group promos here: http://pattyjansen.com/promo/.

If you want to try one of her books, you can grab the links to the various stores on her site. Here’s the information for her Ambassador series and you can also check out her new fantasy release on Amazon.

 

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SFFMP 85: Amazon Imprints, Fantasy with Erotic Elements, and Science Fiction with Elliott Kay

Author Interview, Podcast

We chatted with science fiction and urban fantasy author Elliott Kay today. He’s self-published, but he also has two books published with Amazon’s SkyScape imprint, so we asked him about that in addition to what it’s like to write in both fantasy and science fiction genres. Oh, and we also asked him how he’s sold so many books!

Here are some more specifics on what we covered:

  • Getting started on a writing site such as LitErotica, finding readers, and getting their support when you publish
  • The pros and cons of working with an Amazon imprint such as 47 North (SF/F) or Skyscape (YA)
  • The challenges of getting sponsorships when you’ve got erotic material in your fantasy or scifi
  • Going wide versus jumping into Kindle Unlimited/KDP Select (Elliott has gone both ways)
  • Being a panelist at a convention
  • Whether it’s worth getting a table to sell books at a big convention
  • Keeping two series in different genres going when you’re publishing a book or two a year
  • Selling well with audiobooks
  • Getting reviews
  • The challenges of marketing on Twitter, and why Elliott prefers Facebook for selling books

You can visit Elliott at his website or on Facebook, and if you’re up for a science fiction read, try the first book in his Poor Man’s Fight series on Amazon.

 

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