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

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, we’re talking with Bryan Cohen, who first appeared on our show in episode 15 (YouTube Marketing, Facebook Events, and Increasing Mailing List Sign-Ups). He’s since started a book description/blurb writing service, Best Page Forward, for authors who would like to hand the task to someone else, and he also teaches blurb-writing techniques at Selling For Authors.

Here’s what we talked about:

  • Bryan got to the point where he was hitting a struggling point. He had been doing copywriting for various sites as well as some ghost copywriting. He was doing well with the copywriting, but it wasn’t until someone in his Mastermind group suggested that he do copywriting for authors — Bryan got going right away!
  • Once Bryan announced his service he had over one hundred orders for book descriptions in a month. This was obviously something people wanted.
  • Since there was such big interest in copywriting, Bryan set up coaching and classes to help authors do their copywriting.
  • Youtube videos can be difficult when you don’t have a process, as Bryan found out when he tried to do a video a day (he did 30). He thinks it was a good experience but it was a lot of work and didn’t really fit his brand.
  • Bryan doesn’t think that most writing-related things are doing well on Youtube. However, teaching and longer-style fiction (like Welcome to the Night Vale) does well. And John Green, of course.
  • While it’s hard to make a splash in Youtube, it is something that is possible and certainly someone can build a platform on Youtube and carry it into publishing books.
  • Bryan is planning on working with Chris Fox to help authors speed up their production speeds.
  • After Chris’s successes, Bryan picked Chris’s brain and tried to find a good genre that he would enjoy. If someone just writes for the numbers then they won’t be able to stick around long.
  • He is now working on a fairy tale retelling series that is a bit of a medieval, a little urban fantasy. He is working to be able to launch with a ten day spike.
  • Bryan agreed that it is not always necessary to write to market, but did add that it can be helpful to try it if you’re struggling or haven’t been able to get traction.
  • Bryan is planning on doing a balance between non-fiction and fiction since he spends time in both areas and fit it to where he has been building. He has things coming from non-fiction and fiction.
  • He is tempted to re-release his Ted books, even at the loss of many reviews, in order to release it into KU and get a large initial boost. Along with now having a large social media presence and understanding advertisements, Bryan thinks that it would be a great way to get re-started.
  • When it comes to doing audiobooks, make sure that it is ‘credit worthy’–So that someone feels like using their Audible credit feels that they are getting a good value.
  • When Bryan writes a blurb, he first asks questions. Some include–What is your blurb like now? What is your summary?
  • Bryan does not care if people credit him for the blurb.
  •  These are Bryan’s steps for copywriting.
    • The Headline– A short statement, a hook, that grabs a reader’s attention.
    •  Synopsis–Bryan suggests having the hook ahead of that. You want to establish an emotional connection between the reader and the character. “A character who…” and something that a reader can relate to. If the reader cares about the person then they are more likely to connect to the plot in the summary. Make sure that you end the synopsis on a cliffhanger sort of way to make them want to buy the book.
    • Selling Paragraph–Break down reader barriers to read your book. Include things like “Tentacle Love is the first book in a new sci-fi romance series” followed by adjectives to describe the book that people who read your genre should like.
    • Call to Action–Make sure that you have a ‘Call to Action’ that tells them what to do–“Buy this now!”
  •  When trying to hook a reader, it can be difficult to know what to go into without revealing a big twist. Bryan suggests that you only go into information that is revealed in the first half of the book but hint at what will be coming.
  • Don’t go into too many subplots and name only one or two characters. You don’t need to name the villain.
  • Fantasy authors sometimes have a difficult job writing a summary when the book takes place in a different world. Introductory statements like “When he travels to a far off moon…” followed by more emotional stuff to connect the reader to the character can help build the world without bogging down the reader.
  • Some writers create stories with many PoV characters. It can be best if you have one character that you ‘hang your hat on.’
  • Since Amazon now hides the blurb unless someone clicks, the headline can be very important to get someone to click to read more.
  • You often must be more vague when you are writing the summaries of books that have progressed through part of a series. Sometimes you can still do a concise summary, but don’t be afraid to have to go vague.
  • It’s important to highlight the placement in the series in the selling description.
  • One of the biggest mistakes people can make is focusing too much on keywords. Amazon does not index Kindle book descriptions–They index your keywords, title, subtitle. However, Google does.
  • See his page for info on his pricing.

Lastly, check out Bryan’s Ted Saves the World and Writing Prompts books on Amazon and other stores.

 

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SFFMP 83: Using the Slow Burn Launch Strategy to Stick on Amazon and the Pitfalls of Genre Hopping

Group Discussion, Podcast

The guys chatted about their recent experiences with book launches and also how their genre hopping adventures are going. In addition, they discussed the slow-burn launch strategy that a lot of indie authors have been using to great success.

Here are a few more details of what they covered:

  • How does their launch strategy differ now than from when they were first starting out?
  • Using three books to launch into a new genre or a new pen name, or at least committing to writing and publishing three before giving up.
  • The challenges of genre hopping (even within the umbrella of science fiction and fantasy) and whether or not it’s going to be a career killer.
  • How they’ve gone about finding beta readers to use before sending a manuscript off to an editor for a final pass.
  • Critique groups Lindsay has used for science fiction/fantasy: The SFF Online Writing Workshop and Critters.org.
  • How KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited are playing into most successful book launches now.
  • When pre-orders make sense and if one should consider selling at a lower price during the pre-order.
  • How just launching your book and sending out an announcement to your newsletter subscribers probably won’t be enough to make your book “stick” on Amazon.
  • Segmenting and staggering your newsletter so it goes out to different groups of subscribers over multiple days to fight against the “Bookbub Effect.”
  • Booking “new release” ad slots on sponsorship sites and how many of them are offering that now.
  • Kboards thread referenced in the show: Slow burn launch for stickiness by Aimee Easterling [includes links to many of the siates that will book new releases]
  • Another one: A mini-guide to launch promo services by Nicholas Erik

 

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SFFMP 82: Time Travel Fiction and Keeping a Series Selling Year in and Year out with Monique Martin

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, we’re chatting with time travel author Monique Martin. She’s been publishing about two novels a year since 2010 and has seen a lot of changes since the early days of self-publishing. We talked to her about what’s working now and what’s changed as far as marketing and selling ebooks goes since she got started. We also found out which tropes are popular in time travel science fiction and time travel romance!

Here’s the breakdown:

  • After starting her career in television (with shows like Murder She Wrote), then a family business and even insurance marketing… She wrote at night to keep herself sane.
  • After trying to get an agent she decided to self-publish her first novel a few months later in 2010.
  • She started her book as a standalone but when she finished writing it she knew that it could be a series. You can still do a series with romance.
  • She is straddling two different genres now. She said that it can sometimes alienate readers since not all of them like the same elements of both genres.
  • She spends a lot of time researching for each book. She says that she sort of regrets not setting it in one time period because of the research.
  • When it comes to other writers writing historical, you can get higher numbers rank-wise with less popular genres, but some genres has a bigger readership. Ultimately it should come down to writing what you love.
  • When asked whether or not she thinks that time travel is most viable when it is used as different settings or creating phenomenally complex plots, Monique said that it will depend on what you accomplish. She likes to play with the aspect of changing history and the ripple effects as well as the characters having a commentary on the culture as an outsider (unlike a historical, where the character only knows that world).
  • Monique says she’s a big plotter and makes sure that she plots out her books carefully so that she doesn’t have any issues with the time traveling aspect.
  • She has had some pushback about her straddling genres on having a vampire in a time travel book and it threw a lot of people with that sort of paranormal being in the book.
  • The minutiae of writing time travels/historicals has to do with the details from the historical time period.
  • Monique says that series fatigue has happened to her. She started to have struggles around book five. She decided to have more entry points into the series so that she could do a side series as well.
  • Monique fixes things that readers have pointed out as historical inconsistencies. She is very willing to make adjustments as necessary.
  • Monique has seriously considered having someone create a series bible for her to make things easier in regards to consistency.
  • If she could go back in time, she would have done sketches of the plots of the books in the series before writing them. She says that having an overarching plot planned is advice she’d want to give.
  • Monique is publishing 2-3 books a year. Even though it has been going on for awhile, she is still doing well with her series. She says that the way that she works to keep fans is by engaging with them on Facebook, advertisements in BookBub and creating box sets for promotions–She could do individual BookBubs per book, and then per box set.
  • She does a little advertising on Facebook, mainly pushing people towards book one. She cultivates readers on her Facebook page by doing things like a contest for someone to get a character named after them. Their enthusiasm is a great grassroots element.
  • KindleUnlimited has effected her sales due to people subscribing in large numbers and passing up buying books by staying within the Kindle Unlimited.
  • One way that she is thinking of bringing in new readers is selling books 1-3 in a box set since her series has gotten so long and she hopes it could invigorate her sales.
  • Monique has been wide for most of her career. She has found something of a place on various avenues. She does not think that she could go to KU because she is doing a lot of business outside of Amazon.
  • She suggests putting in at least 4-6 months to try to gain traction in non-Amazon sites. She also suggests trying to get a rep in order to get involved in more promotions.
  • Her original cover was DIY but around book two she realized she needed a professional, branded cover. She chooses to use the same image with different washes.
  • She keeps an eye out on new trends so that she can keep ahead in marketing, although she puts her effort into her writing and research.
  • Monique has found that engaging with her readers on Facebook has been one of the most effective methods of marketing that she has had.
  • She uses a mailing list and wishes she had started one earlier. While she’s not doing any reader enticements but she wants to add some to help add to her sign ups.
  • Monique’s advice for new writers is to find writers, maybe an in-person writers group or online group. She says that KBoards is very valuable.

Visit Monique on her website, and check out her books on Amazon and at the other retailers. The first book in her series is free!

Other links mentioned: Hearts Through Time

The Facebook author group: Time Travel Romance Author Alliance

 

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SFFMP 81: Kindle Unlimited Scams, Writing in Kindle Worlds, and Dystopian Fiction with Ann Christy

Author Interview, Podcast

Today we talked with science fiction author Ann Christy, who has been tracking Kindle Unlimited and reporting on what scammers are up to in the program and why that’s important to us as authors. We also discussed how she came to be writing in Hugh Howey’s WOOL world and the pros and cons of publishing in Kindle Worlds.

Here’s a little more of what we covered:

  • Kindle World is restricted to US accounts and limits non-US readers.
    Kindle World can be positive for many writers because Amazon deals with many details. For example, they set the prices. There are a lot of things writers don’t have to deal with.
  • The split is 65/35% for the creators of the world and the authors of the books.
  • Ann said that when she started, she didn’t understand everything involving self publishing and didn’t even know what was a ‘good’ tally of sales day to day. She was concerned that she only had 100!
  • Ann wrote four books in Hugh Howey’s WOOL world before writing fiction set in her own worlds.
  • Ann made sure that she kept her own worlds open for people who wanted to write within her world. After her positive experience with Hugh Howey, she wanted to give opportunities to other writers.
  • There will always be scammers in Kindle Unlimited because they can move faster than Amazon.
  • One method that scammers do is to put together a large number (sometimes 3,000) pages of unreadable material. They hire people to ‘click farm’ and the hired clickers open the book and skip from the first page to the last page. The authors get paid as though someone had read 3,000 pages.
  • It’s so refined and organized that the collectives of scammers sometimes ‘take turns’ for who gets their bogus books “read” by the collective that week.
  • The books don’t stick around for long. The scammers will remove the copies that were up after they have been click farmed and then they will re-release them under another title.
  • To ensure that their ‘books’ were not well reviewed by Amazon, the scammers were careful about what days and times they submitted their projects that reduced the chances of being caught by Amazon reviewers. As long as they take down the book before Amazon notices it, then they can collect the money made through click farming.
  • It seems that Amazon has begun cracking down on the scammers. There are fewer scamming books then there were before.
  • There are other forms of scamming for Kindle Unlimited that will be more difficult to catch with an algorithm, so Amazon has a lot of work ahead of them.
  • To reduce the chances of Amazon thinking you’re a scammer, be careful about the number of times you include specific stories into box sets. It can appear that you are trying to scam by spreading out the story that many times. But things like bonus chapters of the next book are completely fine—It’s more of the over saturation that can get you watched.
  • Ann says that if she were in charge of the situation at Amazon, she would put a system together where new authors would have their books looked at by a human, and perhaps the next three books and/or any books within a 90 day period. She thinks that they should still allow authors who are in the system to publish to keep new content coming in.
  • Can you report scammer books? Yes. You can scroll down to the bottom of the book page and report books as scam books. Unfortunately it hasn’t proved to be as effective as we could wish it was.
  • Honest authors should leave links to mailing lists, etc. and limit your clicks within the book. This will reduce the potential red flags. Anything that is in the legitimate table of contents can stay.
  • Ann says her major marketing tool is to ‘beg BookBub.’ Besides that she admits that she doesn’t really know how to market and needs more tutelage.
  • We also discussed whether being anthologies help and how hot of a genre dystopian fiction is right now.

 

Learn more about Ann Christy and her books at her Amazon author profile. You can also connect with her on her Facebook page. Strikers Eastland, the sequel to her Strikers novel, is coming out at the end of May. She also has a story coming out in Dark Discoveries magazine.

 

 

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SFFMP 80: Dissecting Steampunk + Creating a Multi-Author Anthology in a Shared World

Group Discussion, Podcast

Today, we had a podcast first: three guests at the same time. They are all steampunk authors and are a part of a shared world anthology called The Faraday Cage. (If you happen to catch this in the next few days, head over to the site; they’re doing a book giveaway.)

Steven Turnbull was the editor and publisher of the anthology. Peter A. Smalley and Virginia Marybury were contributors. We had them on to talk about the steampunk genre and how to go about putting together an anthology full of shared world stories by different authors. It was a little different from our usual interviews, but we hope you find it to be interesting.

Here are the authors’ links if you want to check out more from them:

The book website is: http://the-faraday-cage.com

The Amazon page (geolink): http://bit.ly/the-faraday-cage

And the authors:

Rob Harkess

http://www.amazon.com/R-B-Harkess/e/B0070CCSFG

Social media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RBHarkess

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rbharkess/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/114351001736513757578/about

Peter A. Smalley

http://www.amazon.com/Peter-A.-Smalley/e/B0055QE0MS

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Peter_Smalley

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peterasmalley/

Google+: https://www.google.com/+PeterSmalley

Virginia Marybury

Twitter: https://twitter.com/VMarybury

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VirginiaMarybury

Katy O’Dowd

http://www.amazon.com/Katy-ODowd/e/B006292ELG

Twitter: https://twitter.com/katyod

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katy.odowd

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/109100749123016978303/about

Steve Turnbull

http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Turnbull/e/B00H20G7P8

Twitter: https://twitter.com/adaddinsane

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steveturnbullwriter

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+SteveTurnbull-Writer/about 

 

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SFFMP 79: Epic Fantasy, YouTube Marketing, and Finding a Route to Success with Garrett Robinson

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, we chatted with epic fantasy author Garrett Robinson (http://garrettbrobinson.com/) who got his start with genre hopping and serialized fiction before deciding to settle in and focus on epic fantasy. Several novels later, he’s selling a lot of books and making a great living.

Here’s some of what we talked about:

  • Outlining and planning when you’re building a big world with multiple series and storylines
  • Juggling multiple series and having publication schedules that satisfy the readers and make marketing doable
  • Why it took three books and a boxed set before the ball really started rolling for Garrett
  • What kinds of book covers are expected for epic fantasy
  • Live vlogging a novel as a way to interact with readers and also as an accountability tool
  • Creating a YouTube channel where videos actually convert to book sales
  • Why Garrett is sticking with KDP Select for the time being
  • The perks of getting a Bookbub ad while in Kindle Unlimited
  • Why he’s enjoying Tumblr as a social media platform
  • Author Platform Rocket — a resource Garrett uses for generating Facebook leads for his mailing list
  • Tips for Facebook advertising (don’t be shy — imagine yourself as a marketing firm that was hired to plug your books)

If you want to get Garrett’s first book for free, stop by his page and sign up for his newsletter.

 

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SFFMP 78: International Sales Trends/Tips and Selling More Ebooks at Kobo with Mark Lefebvre

Author Interview, Podcast

Today we chatted with Mark Leslie Lefebvre, a horror author who also happens to be the Director of Self-Publishing & Author Relations at Kobo.com. We talked about how to increase visibility and sell more books at Kobo, and also about trends for science fiction and fantasy, both in the main Canadian store and in the numerous international stores that Kobo works with.

Here’s some of what we covered:

  • Keeping things in perspective: Kobo is a much smaller store than Amazon (but they often go toe-to-toe when it comes to non-U.S. markets)
  • Reasons to go direct to Kobo through Kobo Writing Life (versus using Smashwords/Draft 2 Digital distribution)
  • The new “promotions” tab that’s available to authors (currently in beta) via the dashboard in Kobo Writing Life
  • Tips for getting on the radar of those who handle merchandising for Kobo
  • Best pricing tactics for science fiction and fantasy
  • Which countries are growing and friendly to speculative fiction?
  • Pricing considerations for international markets
  • How science fiction and fantasy are trending upward and more authors are appearing in the Top 10 of overall best selling indie authors at Kobo (it’s not all just romance anymore!)
  • A tip for visibility: make sure to fill out your series meta data, keywords, and put something in the imprint field (even if it’s your author name), in addition to having a good cover and blurb.
  • Increasing a book’s “temperature” at Kobo through sales (even looks and clicks can help)
  • Mark suggests SF/F authors hit up their local ComicCon and pay for a booth there (hint: he sells tons of books when he goes)

If you want to check out Mark’s fiction, his short story, “Snowman Shivers,” is free on all platforms: Kobo, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Apple.

You can find Mark on Twitter @markleslie and you can also follow @KoboWritingLife

 

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SFFMP 77: Making a USA Today Bestseller Run, Facebook Advertising, and Kindle Scout with Michael James Ploof

Author Interview, Podcast

Today we chatted with fantasy author Michael James Ploof. He’s published two YA epic fantasy series, and he’s also experimented with a pen name writing the naughtier stuff (paranormal/urban fantasy with romance).

His pen name was a recent Kindle Scout winner, and his Whill of Agora boxed set made the USA Today Bestseller’s list last year. We pumped him for information on how he sold (in one week!) the 6,000+ ebooks (including 500+ at a non-Amazon vendor) necessary to hit the list.

We also talked about how Facebook ads are an ongoing part of his sales strategy and how he’s using them + a permafree Book 1 to keep sales steady month in and month out.

You can get Michael’s first book for free on Amazon and in other stores. His pen name novel, A Cross to Bear, released last month, if you want to check that out too.

 

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SFFMP 76: Bestselling Space Opera, Facebook Ads, and Getting Mailing List Sign-ups with Nick Webb

Author Interview, Podcast

This week we welcome Nick Webb. Nick grew up in the Seattle area, and bounced around California, Argentina, with a quick stop in Utah to pick up a Ph.D. in Experimental Physics. From there it was on to Huntsville where he fends off weeds from his tomato garden, plays legos with his kids, and somehow fits in time to write his novels.

He is the author of the Pax Humana Saga and The Legacy Fleet Trilogy and has hit the USA Today Bestsellers list, as well as selling a lot of books through Amazon in the last year.

If you’re not pushing it (your release) or marketing it and promoting it, the odds are it’s just going to languish there because there is so much competition. — Nick Webb

We hope you enjoy these notes!

  • Nick read all of the extended universe Star Wars books and sort of grew up in the world of science fiction as a youth. Star Trek even got him to pursue science!
  • In six months, Nick had played # hours on his new Xbox. When he realized he had spent so much time on the XBox he was shocked to realize how much time he had spent playing video games. He decided to make a resolution to mostly give up video games and to write a book.
  • Nick didn’t know very much about writing, but he sought out information on the industry on KBoards. He still has some great relationships with people who helped him along his way.
  • Fourth book reached top 500 (thanks to mailing list–50 to 100 sales which helped with the algorithms).
  • Wanted a series that had multiple entry places to give him more options. It helps having different avenues for people to get into the world, and to have more options for BookBub and other places.
  • Build the mailing list to get thousands of eyes on the new releases
  • Space Opera versus Hard Science Fiction and his experience… The extra challenge. Nick tries to make his handwaving as believable as possible but doesn’t focus on things or explain everything. The difference between Space Opera and Hard Science Fiction generally comes down to how many technical details there are.
  • Nick joked that he wished he’d known ‘everything’ before he’d gotten started. But his main wishes would be how to work at marketing, selling, and branding.
  • He’s working all the time… Even if its just on Facebook and marketing (or ‘goofing off’ but it’s also work… tips and tricks) Working till midnight.
  • Facebook adds are no longer working as well, and are getting more expensive because writers are sort of competing for the same clicks. Audio adds don’t allow you to track their results.
  • Mailing list is timeless and an insurance policy. Facebook, Amazon, and website hosting can’t take it away from you. Direct contact with your readers. You can have people sign up to your mailing list to get a free short story.
  • It can be easy to think that writers who have put in a lot of time and effort simply hit the jackpot when they’ve worked hard toward it. It can give a false expectation when people have both hard work and luck.

You have to expect to succeed in the business, you have to invest something. — Nick Webb

  • Nick is willing to have a negative turn of investment during launch to get it up there on the ranking. He spent a few hundred in Facebook adds for direct sales during his release for Victory. About $600 for Constitution. (Broke even on the advertisements)
  • Leads which link readers to the page where there was a direct signup and when they confirm they get free books to download (from Dropbox).
  • You have to expect to succeed in the business you have to invest something. It might be hard, but it can be worth it.
  • Places that might give a lot of exposure with your debut novel: Book Barbarian Book Sends, etc. You might get the first 30 or 40 sales.
  • Preorders can sap/dilute a book’s visibility on launch day/launch week because you spread out the initial purchases instead of boosting your visibility.
  • It’s the opposite for iBooks.
  • Nick says the main perk for Select is the borrows boosting visibility (or KU depending on genre).
  • Nick’s main marketing focus is his mailing list, Facebook ads… But he is careful to spread out his marketing beyond just the first day by doing things like mailing some of his list on one of three days.

Learn more about Nick at his website, his Amazon profile, and his book Constitution (over a thousand positive reviews).

Update:

Here are the links to the promos that Lindsay mentioned:

Self Publishing Round Table: SF&F Cross Promo Multi Author Giveaway

Patty Jansen’s ongoing monthly promos.

 

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SFFMP 75: Genre Hopping, How to be Prolific, and Marketing Across Genres with Elle Casey

Author Interview, Podcast

Elle Casey is not just a NYT and USA Today bestselling author–She’s also an extremely prolific writer. She averages a release rate of one book, about 85,00 words, a month. You’ll want to check out this podcast to learn how she is able to manage such a rate of releases. But it’s not just her speed that is impressive. Elle Casey has worked in many different genres under the same name. She has advice on how to use the same name and publish in a variety of genres without confusing readers.

“The more books you have the more work that goes into the promotion, the organizing of the front and back matter, responding to fan mail…” — Elle Casey

Here are some notes!

  • Elle Casey is a former attorney and teacher. Now she’s a New York Times bestseller and USA Today Bestseller.

  • She’s a prolific writer—averaging one full length a month while writing in multiple genres. Her novels are about 85,000 words each, except her science fiction series.

  • Elle was working as a teacher of legal English in France. She wasn’t sure if writing was for her—at that time. She’d thought about picking it up when she retired because of the difficulties and possible rejections of a traditional path. But after learning about self publishing she decided to get started.

  • She sold 50 books in the first month—a lot of them were bought by her mother but some strangers did buy them and leave reviews, which is what encouraged her to go on.

  • Genres that Elle has written in include: Action/adventure, urban fantasy, fantasy, sci-fi, romance.

  • Soon after beginning she was able to write full length novels quickly. The added bonus of a writing community helped steer her in the right directions as she built her business to increase her success. She was soon writing so prolifically that she was able to quit her job as a teacher and write full time.

  • With these particular struggles, Elle found it useful to hire a full time assistant last summer which has really helped her with her career. Things that her assistant does include keeping track of non-writing things and talking to fans. It helps that they live nearby so they can work together in person.

  • She admits that she can be a “lazy” person (and often would rather ride a horse!). Elle says that she can leave things off to the last minute. She works better under pressure. Her writing pressure has changed a little now that she has contractual obligations with Montlake Romance. She has found it difficult to work from series to series once she has to break away from one to work on another.

  • Elle says that the biggest difficulty in ‘genre hopping’ is that it can be difficult to brand herself. However, she also says that going from genre to genre can help her keep her writing fresh. Her covers help designate the genres of her books.

  • Despite science fiction/fantasy having a smaller number of readers compared to romance, she feels that she can only reach a small number of romance readers while she can be seen by a much higher percentage by science fiction/fantasy readers. She also sees science fiction as the “next frontier.”

  • Elle’s opinion is that KU is good for new writers who are trying to get their name out, but bad for a long term career. She feels like KU can devalue books. She hopes that one day writers could stand up against KU.

  • The only way that she can write a novel a month is by setting a goal of 85,000 words. She has been using Dragon Dictation to help her write 20,000 words in a day with Dragon. Writing this many words on a keyboard results in ice on her wrists. She had tried Dragon twice before, but after joining a Facebook group that had lots of tips she decided to give it a try. It’s been a great way for her to revolutionize her writing.

  • She finds outlining to not work very well for her, although she will try writing an outline in one-line outline. Elle has a game plan with her writing — but says it is very fluid!

  • When asked what she thinks is a common mistake with writing in various genres is that people pick up too many pen names. It’s not just the books, but dealing with all the social media, the marketing, the branding. Instead, by making things as clear as possible through the covers and the description, she hopes that it will clarify things for the readers.

  • She tries to do a BookBub advertisement once a month because of how large her catalogue is. switching genres you can be in BookBub more often. Although she used to do Facebook advertisements but they are no longer as easy.

  • Elle warned people that giving away too many books can lead to certain expectations by readers. Some readers can get demanding that they get free books or else they will go to other authors. Give away first—Then have them buy the rest.

  • She sends on email a month to her mailing list. If she does not have a new release then she sometimes promotes a friend’s book. She is careful to give appropriate headers in her mailing list regarding her genres.

  • Check out Aesta’s Book Blog and how she gets engagement on Facebook. She is a great example of how to maximize your Facebook influence.

  • Elle has found some crossover readers throughout her series. She didn’t have a lot of expectations, but she’s finding that more and more readers are trying something else for the same sort of writing (laugh-out-loud).

  • Her opinion is that finishing a series before moving on to another project can be advantageous because readers—including herself—sometimes wait till an entire series is released before picking it up.

  • Different groups of people are attracted to different types of genres. On her street team Facebook page she sees people of all ages discussing what they love about her book and it’s not just about the specific genre but also about the unique style of her writing.

  • Elle wishes that she had been more sophisticated in her branding from the beginning.

Find more about her and her books at ellecasey.com. She has links to purchase her books on a wide variety of retailers… And information on free leaders.

 

 

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