SFFMP 19: Making Books Permafree, Where to Buy Sponsorships, and Tumblr with C. Gockel
We interviewed C. Gockel this week (don’t tell anyone, but we found out that C stands for Carolynn), urban fantasy author of the I Bring the Fire series (the first book is free, so go check it out!). She hasn’t quit her day job yet, but it sounds like she’s getting close to making “professional income.”
Here’s a summary of some of the questions we asked her:
- How did writing fan fiction lead to a career as a successful indie author?
- Are there any advantages to starting out with fan fiction? Any lessons a new author can learn?
- When you start thinking about publishing (and making some money!), is it better to modify a successful fanfic to make it an original story, or are you better off starting something new?
- How has having a permafree Book 1 affected the sales of later books in your series? Is it still effective, even though your first ebook has been free for quite a while now?
- What do you do to promote your permafree title and keep the sales of subsequent books rolling in month after month?
- Have you tried discounting other books in your series, or do you stick with the first?
- Are any advertisers more worth it than others, or do some charge too much? (Carolynn wisely did not want to dis anyone, but she gave some tips for evaluating whether a sponsorship site is worth it.)
- You use Tumblr for your blogging platform — does it offer any advantages over more traditional spots?
- Do you ever get fans offering to help “edit” your books or offering other advice? How do you deal with that?
Looking for the free resource spreadsheets we mentioned in the show? Here are Carolynn’s links:
Sponsors Who Advertise FREE Ebooks
Sponsors Who Advertise 99 Cent Ebooks
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Thanks so much for having me on, guys! It was fun.
You’re welcome, Carolyn! Thanks for doing the interview and sharing your experiences with us!
Excellent podcast! The advice here, and on your other shows is really going to help me launch my three book series. Thanks Lindsay and Joseph (and all these excellent guests)
Thanks, Brandon, and good luck with the new series! 🙂
Great podcast! I’ve bookmarked those spreadsheets for use on my own books. You can Google where to advertise your ebooks but you never know how well they will do, so I really appreciate Carolyn’s research! I plan on developing similar spreadsheets for my own advertising.
I have referred to them a couple of times already, too, Steve. Sometimes when you Google places, you end up finding sites that haven’t been updated in a year. Not too helpful. 😀
Thanks for sharing. Excellent podcast!