going wide – Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

SFFMP 118: Writing Longer Books, Pricing Higher, Web Serials, and Generating Multiple Streams of Income to Go Full Time

February 7, 2017 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Drew Hayes, superhero/litRPG/urban fantasy author, joined us for this week’s show. He got his start with web serials before Wattpad was ever a thing, and he grew a fanbase so that when he launched his first ebook a few years ago, it did great right out of the blocks. Since then, he’s started several series, including urban fantasy with a small press, and gone full time as an author.

Here are some of the details of what we talked about tonight:

How Drew started publishing his work on the web and wrote the first year of his Super Powereds story before ever creating an ebook.
Are web serials still popular, and would it be worth starting one as a new author coming in now?
Can a podcast be useful for growing a fan base?
Writing longer books (of 200,000 words or more) and pricing a little higher — will the market accept that?
Succeeding as a full-time author on about three releases a year.
Why Drew decided to sign with a small press after he’d had success as a self-published author.
How long books can be great for the audio format, since some listeners buy the longest books they can get for their monthly credit at Audible.
How Drew uses Patreon to bring in extra income and also keep in touch with his fans.
Why he’s stuck with going wide and hasn’t joined Amazon KDP Select for more than a brief trial.
His thoughts on advertising (he hasn’t done much of it!) and what’s working for others he knows who do more.
His interesting launch strategy to get a lot of reviews on release day…

Drew’s blog post on the basics of advances.

You can visit Drew on his site, check out the Authors & Dragons podcast, or find his books in any of the online stores including Amazon. You can also check out his Patreon campaign or the new book he has coming out later in February: Forging Hephaestus (Villains’ Code Book 1).

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amazon, drew hayes, going wide, kdp select, patreon, platform building, podcasting, super heroes, urban fantasy, wattpad, web serials

SFFMP 45: What Does It Take To Write a Series People Want to Buy?

August 25, 2015 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

Update: Sorry for the incomplete episode. The entire show is now on there!

Tonight our stalwart hosts discussed the changes to Kindle Unlimited, uploading pre-orders directly to stores, and what we’ve learned about writing in series. This was the meat of our show and we each shared three things that we’ve done (either intentionally or inadvertently) that have helped our series gain traction and attract diehard fans. We also talked about when it makes sense to abandon a series that just isn’t performing, open-ended episodic series versus ones that have a clear overarching storyline, and how to develop characters that keep people coming back for more.

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amazon, characters, going wide, kdp select, kindle unlimited 2, pre-orders, selling series, series, writing series

SFFMP 40: Going Wide and Selling More on Platforms Besides Amazon

July 19, 2015 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

On this hot summer day, we chatted amongst ourselves about going wide and improving sales on the sites other than Amazon, specifically Kobo, Apple, and Barnes & Noble. We even brought up the subscription sites (Scribd and Oyster) and Google Play. We also answered a couple of listener questions.

Here’s a closer look at what we covered:

Does it matter what time of year you launch a new series? I.e. are summer sales slow, and should you wait until fall?
When is it acceptable to call yourself an Amazon bestseller?
What are the pros and cons of publishing on all of the stores versus going exclusive with Amazon?
How the heck do you sell books on those other sites anyway? We talked about using the free book or the 99-cent intro boxed set, trying to talk with the distributors to get promotions, linking to all of your books on all of the sites, and including sneak previews to entice the people who read the freebies to pick up the rest of the series.
Should you adjust prices at all on the other sites?
Is it better to go through a distributor such as Smashwords or Draft2Digital or upload directly everywhere that you can?
The link to the “first in series free” thread Lindsay mentioned (though it looks like it isn’t being monitored by Kobo any more). Someone suggested you can fill out this form on Kobo to be considered.