Tag: epic fantasy

SFFMP 204: Selling 10,000 Copies of Your First Novel with Joseph Malik

Author Interview, Podcast

Today, we were joined by fantasy author, Joseph Malik, who published his first novel, Dragon’s Trail, in 2016 and has managed to sell 10,000 copies over the last two years, despite being a new author and new to marketing. We talked to him about some of the things he tried that didn’t work, plus what he tried that did.

*Note: a couple of swear words slipped out in this episode, so be careful if you’re listening in the car with young and impressionable kids (or dogs).

Here are some of the specifics that we talked about in the show:

  • Trying out a lot of hobbies such as sword fighting and martial arts to better learn how to make your fantasy novels seem realistic.
  • Tips for authors who wouldn’t mind trying to learn some of the combat stuff even if they’re busy with life and not athletically inclined.
  • Balancing including details and strong world building with keeping the story moving along and readers entertained.
  • Diana Wynne Jones’ Tough Guide to Fantasyland (and why your characters probably shouldn’t be eating stew after a long trek).
  • Publishing on a more traditional release schedule (Joseph published his first two novels about two years apart) and keeping the books selling when it’s a while between releases.
  • How his experience as a panelist at NorWesCon helped a lot with book sales for him.
  • Why Joseph publishes hard cover copies of his books and where he sells them.
  • How he’s sold most of his books at full price and intends to stick with that going forward.
  • Some of the marketing things he tried early on that didn’t move the dial much and what did work.

If you want to learn more or check out Joseph’s books, please visit his website: http://josephmalik.com/

 

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SFFMP 188: A Successful Fantasy Series Relaunch

Author Interview, Podcast

On this week’s show, we chat with dark/epic fantasy author and podcaster Andy Peloquin. Andy got the rights back to his first series and did a big and very successful relaunch, revamping it to appeal to assassin-loving epic fantasy fans instead of the dark fantasy fans it previously targeted.

Here are some of the specifics that we covered:

  • Andy’s background as a freelance writer.
  • His first forays into publishing, including signing with a small publisher.
  • Why he decided to ask for the rights back to his first series and relaunch it himself.
  • How he redid his blurbs and covers to target a larger audience than previously.
  • Researching not just in his genre but in his specific niche (assassins, mercenaries, sellswords, etc.) and seeing what kinds of covers were selling.
  • Creating an effective epic fantasy cover with stock photos instead of paying a fortune for custom illustrations.
  • Changing the titles to hit on popular epic fantasy tropes.
  • How he contacted other authors in his niche and asked for them to plug his book when he was ready to release the new Book 1.
  • How he’s designed effective Facebook ads that don’t cost him much per click.
  • Whether his Fantasy Fiends podcast has been useful for networking with authors and making book sales to listeners.
  • How to know if it’s worth doing a relaunch for a flagging series.

You can visit Andy on his site or check out his books on Amazon, including the newly relaunched Hero of Darkness series.

You can also check out Andy’s podcast, Fantasy Fiends, on YouTube, iTunes, etc.

 

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SFFMP 181: Spreading out Your Advertising Dollars for Effectiveness and Launching Well as a New Author

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, epic fantasy/fantasy romance author Miranda Honfleur joined us on the show. She launched her first series last November and has kept book 1 selling well and sticking in the Amazon fantasy charts while releasing more books in the series. She has three out now with a fourth to follow later this summer. We asked her how she did so well as a new author and how she’s maintaining sales.

Here are some more specifics on what we covered:

  • Miranda’s road to publishing.
  • How she’s balanced writing epic fantasy that’s heavy on romance, something epic fantasy readers aren’t always looking for.
  • What she took away from the Sell More Books Show conference as a new author.
  • How she used Instafreebie to building a mailing list months before she launched her first book.
  • Creating promotions using the King Sumo WordPress app.
  • Tips for getting the most out of Bookbub PPC ads, Amazon ads, and Facebook ads.
  • Whether she’s needed to cull her mailing list, something we just talked about on last week’s show!
  • How she tries to be everywhere with advertising.
  • How much time she’s putting into Amazon ads and other marketing methods to keep her Book 1 selling week in and week out.
  • Whether Instagram may be the next place fantasy authors should have a presence.
  • Marketing to “series-adjacent” genres as part of a larger strategy.

You can find Miranda on her website or on Amazon where her books are currently in Kindle Unlimited. If you’re a fantasy fan, check out her first book, Blade & Rose. If you enjoyed fairy tales, she’s a part of the Of Beasts and Beauties boxed set.

 

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SFFMP 174: Outlining Your Novel for More Efficient Writing and Starting New in Epic Fantasy

Author Interview, Podcast

Today, we were joined by return guest Scott King, the author of Outline Your Novel: The How To Guide for Structuring and Outlining Your Novel and The Five Day Novel, as well as numerous fantasy and young adult adventures. He recently jumped into epic fantasy with the first book in his Elderrealm series, Wrath of Dragons. We grilled him on outlining and also how he found starting out in epic fantasy this year after publishing in other genres previously.

Here are some of the specifics that we talked about:

  • How an outline can help an author become more efficient.
  • Whether pantsers can get anything out of outlining.
  • Outlining a single novel versus doing a series.
  • Starting with a pitch and then developing an outline.
  • Mistakes authors make with outlining.
  • What to do if the story diverges from the outline as you write it.
  • How tough it is to break into epic fantasy today as an author new to the genre.
  • Whether Kindle Unlimited/KDP Select is a good idea for epic fantasy.
  • The pros and cons of mailing list swaps.
  • The challenges of genre jumping.

You can find Scott on his website or Twitter, and grab his first epic fantasy novel Wrath of Dragons or his outlining book, Outline Your Novel.

Also, check out his Creators Cast podcast.

 

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SFFMP 169: Writing Across Genres, Getting New Books to Stick, and Epic/Military Fantasy with David Estes

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, David Estes–author of dystopian fiction, children’s fiction, and epic fantasy (with more genres on the way)–joined us to talk about jumping into epic/military fantasy last year, how he managed to launch well into a new genre, and how he’s kept his books in the category top 100s on Amazon for the last year. We also discussed how he got his books picked up by Podium Publishing for audiobook versions and some of the challenges of marketing audio.

Here are some of the specifics that we covered:

  • The various subgenres of fantasy and science fiction that David has written in and whether it’s been harder or easier to find success when he’s been “genre hopping.”
  • The relatively recent addition of “military fantasy” as a category on Amazon.
  • Common tropes or what readers expect from military fantasy as a subgenre.
  • Having audiobooks produced through a publisher verses producing your own through ACX.
  • Some of the challenges of marketing audiobooks and the importance of finding a good narrator.
  • How much better longer books often do when it comes to audiobooks (due to the Audible credit system).
  • Why David rapid released his first three epic fantasy novels and if he’ll do it again for his next series.
  • Keeping the momentum and publishing regularly even when you’re working a day job and writing long novels.
  • The advertising and group promos that helped David with his launch into a new genre.
  • How much he’s spending on advertising and what’s working best for him (hint: Bookbub’s pay-per-click ads) to keep his first book in the Top 100 for epic fantasy month in and month out.
  • Whether people are willing to tolerate a higher price point on longer novels.
  • Adding bonus content such as short stories to the end of novels (especially those in Kindle Unlimited) rather than selling them as 99-cent stand-alones.

Visit David’s website to see what he’s up to or check out his books on Amazon. You can also visit his Goodreads fan group, which he talked about during the interview, or follow his progress with his new Patreon page.

 

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SFFMP 132: Are Spinoffs a Good Idea, Costs of Cover Art, & Marketing Unique Stories

Group Discussion, Podcast

For the first time in a couple of months, Jeff, Jo, and Lindsay didn’t have a guest tonight. They answered listener questions and talked about their own experiences with spinoffs and the pros and cons of doing them from a financial and creative standpoint.

Here are a few specifics that they talked about:

  • Kindle Worlds and whether Jo’s experience writing in Lindsay’s world was worth the time that was invested.
  • Whether book trailers ever work and are worth doing.
  • How much to expect to spend for the various types of cover art (i.e. illustrated, photoshop/illustration combination with stock art or with models and photo shoots of your own).
  • The challenges of using stock photos and finding good images when you’re writing people of color (or just need period-appropriate clothing for fantasy/science fiction).
  • Whether it’s possible for an epic fantasy story that’s not in a traditional setting or not a traditional story to do well.
  • Whether you need to create a DBA or anything special when you start publishing under a pen name.
  • Advice for getting Amazon to make an ebook free when it’s already free in other stores.
  • Some of the reasons that writing a spinoff might make sense if you had a series that did well (i.e. an almost guaranteed audience, no need to start from scratch with world-building, easier to guess how much the books will earn, based on the sales from the past series).
  • Some of the reasons you may not want to do a spinoff (i.e. may only appeal to readers of the original series, may lose some of the magic of the original, may be constrained by events that happened in the original).

 

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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 72: Selling More by Writing to Market + A Novel in 21 Days with Chris Fox

Author Interview, Podcast

Our guest this week is Chris Fox, author of Writing to Market, the Deathless Series, Hero Born, and more. You might remember him from our show in July of 2015. Now he isn’t just encouraging you to write 5k an hour—He has a new nonfiction book out that will help redefine the way you look at writing to make a big splash in the market with potentially less work. Writing to Market shows you how to examine marketing trends and write books that give readers the experiences they want.

Here’s a taste of what we discussed:

  • The troubles of writing a book that doesn’t quite fit into market—With elements that might be like ‘mixing peanut butter with pickles.’
  • How it can be easier to establish a presence in the market if you write something a little more mainstream. It should be something that you enjoy writing, but something that offers a more ready market.
  • That going into publishing with eyes wide open about the market and genres can have a tremendous effect on your career.
  • The importance of writing to the market and taking care to pay attention to details like word counts for specific genres.
  • How a writer can succeed even if their original works aren’t very good.
  • How to ensure your backlist doesn’t go stale.
  • Ways to figure out if combining specific genres can be a good or bad ideas.
  • Learning methods to use keywords to help you learn both how successful different genres are and how to find an underserved market.
  • Tips and tricks for switching genres as an already established author.
  • Taking on an intense challenge—A 21 Day Novel Challenge. Possible? Tune in—You won’t want to miss it or what he would say to someone wanting to undertake it.

If you enjoyed the show, please visit Chris on his site and check out his Deathless series and books on writing there and on his Amazon page.

 

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

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

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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