Tag: kindle unlimited

SFFMP 172: Making It as a Newer Author, Marketing YA Fantasy, and are Vampires Still “In”?

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Like many new authors, Caroline Peckham‘s first series, a YA fantasy adventure, The Rise of Isaac, didn’t sell as well as she’d hoped. For her second series, she did a lot of market research and switched to a more popular type of YA fantasy, vampires in a contemporary paranormal setting. She also adopted some more effective marketing tactics and had a successful launch last fall. She’s since released a second “V Games” novel and is editing a third, and the series continues to do well, months after the initial launch.

Here are a few of the details that we discussed on the show:

  • Some of the challenges of marketing young adult fiction as a self-published author.
  • What made Caroline decide to switch from one type of YA fantasy to another.
  • Concerns about finding readers when one’s target audience doesn’t have credit cards and doesn’t shop on Amazon.
  • Why Caroline has had more success targeting adult audiences who happen to enjoy young adult fiction.
  • Whether vampires are too crowded a niche to get into or there are still opportunities.
  • How Caroline first found reviewers by seeking out readers in her genre who had reviewed books similar to hers.
  • Finding reviewers on Goodreads and then moving them over to an easily manageable Facebook group.
  • Why Caroline makes her ARC reviewer Facebook group public rather than private and lets people who find her through the platform in to get free review copies.
  • Using the Werble App to create animations that can be used on Facebook to help with promotions.
  • Pricing a Book 1 at 99 cents or 99p in KU to keep it higher in the rankings and bring in readers for the rest of the full-priced series.
  • Which social media platforms Caroline uses and why she didn’t do much with Wattpad, despite it being a popular destination for younger readers.
  • Caroline’s experiments with Facebook advertising and how she found out that the clicks she got weren’t converting that well.
  • Whether vampire stories seem to do better in the US or the UK.

You can visit Caroline on her website or Facebook, and check out her books on Amazon.

 

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SFFMP 171: Lindsay’s Launch Numbers (Earned vs Spent), Targeting International Sales, and Increasing Mailing List Open Rates

Group Discussion, Podcast

Our three hosts were by themselves today and answered some listener questions that had been stacking up. They ran the gamut and included selling more audiobooks, selling more paperbacks, selling more in international markets, increasing newsletter open rates, and what you should do to start gathering a mailing list of interested readers before you launch your first novel. Lindsay also shared her numbers from her recent fantasy launch.

Here are a few more of the specifics that we covered:

  • What it takes to get a KDP All Star bonus these days.
  • Whether Lindsay found Bookbub CPM, Facebook PPC, or Amazon CPC ads more useful for her epic fantasy/sword and sorcery launch, and how much she spent overall on advertising, cover art, and editing.
  • Jeff’s foray into audiobooks — can you have a narrator that speaks too slowly?
  • Jo’s experiments with reworking some of his old newsletter bonus material and publishing a short story a month (are ebooks published at 99 cents worth it?).
  • Tips for increasing open rates with mailing lists and what’s considered a good rate.
  • What kinds of subject lines work best with newsletters.
  • How ACX users can promote their audiobooks (we forgot to mention getting codes from ACX for giveaways, but you can email for those and use them selectively with new releases).
  • Tips for getting more sales in the UK, Australia, Canada, and other English-speaking (and reading) markets.
  • Tips for selling more paperbacks.
  • Whether Wattpad is worth it for a marketing platform.
  • Whether a pen name needs its own Facebook author page.
  • If an author in the UK needs to make a special edition for American English readers.
  • If it’s okay to publish shorter novels so you can get stuff out more frequently.
  • What’s the best way to start your writing/publishing career if your number one interest is gaining a steady readership?
  • Your hosts share which of their characters are most like them and what the hardest things for them to edit out were.

Want to see what the hosts are up to?

You can check out Jo’s new 99-cent prequel novella, Beta Testers or preorder the Book of Deacon short story collection he mentioned in the show.

Jeff’s latest release is one of his mystery novels, Case of the Pilfered Pooches (Corgi Case Files Book 4).

Lindsay’s short sci-fi story “Bearadise Lodge” is up for free on her blog.

 

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SFFMP 164: 2018 Marketing Predictions, Our Author Resolutions, and When to Advertise What

Group Discussion, Podcast

Happy New Year! The guys chatted amongst themselves on today’s show, talking about some of their predictions of where book marketing is going in 2018 (what’s making a return and what’s falling by the wayside?) and some of their own author resolutions. They also covered a number of listener questions on topics such as whether to advertise later books in a series, Facebook videos, and whether readers cross over to other genres and pen names.

Here are a few more of the specifics we talked about:

  • Jeff moving to Phoenix and leaving the day job to write full time.
  • Lindsay’s recent fantasy book launch and a few things that didn’t go as well as hoped.
  • Why Lindsay started a Patreon campaign for fans that want to get her books early.
  • When should you switch to advertising the newest in a popular series rather than the first book?
  • Some of the guys’ easiest and hardest sells when it comes to their own books, and what they leaned from the experiences.
  • Making sure not to continue to throw a lot of money at books that just aren’t able to sell on their own.
  • Why Jo and Lindsay are both planning to put out more free fiction (short stories) for their fans.
  • Whether it’s better to write and release more short novels or if longer novels give you an advantage.
  • Predictions that more authors will work to lessen their reliance on Amazon in the coming year.
  • Diversifying your author income.
  • Will we see a return of some popular book marketing tactics from a few years ago?
  • More and more authors writing in the same genre forming groups to help each other with promotions.
  • A possible return to an emphasis on finding your true fans and building a relationship with them rather than just worrying about scoring big with the Amazon algorithms.
  • The pros and cons of cross-over when you’re writing in multiple genres.
  • Whether video on Facebook ads will continue to grow and if there’s any use for authors.

If you want to check out your hosts’ work, you can try Jeffrey Poole’s first Corgi mystery novel for free right now, or get his first Tales of Lentari fantasy novel for 99 cents.

You can try Jo’s first steampunk novel, Free Wrench, for free. You can also check out his new fantasy short story Entwell Origins: Ayna.

Lindsay’s Dragon Storm is out on Amazon, and her Dragon Blood boxed set is free everywhere for another week or two.

 

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SFFMP 162: Finding Success in a Niche, When 99-cent Novels Make Sense, and Bucking Cover Trends with Amanda Milo

Author Interview, Podcast

Our guest this week launched her first novel in April of 2017 to great success. Amanda Milo’s science fiction romance, Stolen by an Alien, stuck in the Top 250 overall in the Amazon store for months and remained near the top of the scifi romance Top 100 too. She’s since published two more novels in the series for the rabid fanbase that she’s already established.

We brought her on to ask about how she launched to such success, why she’s continued to launch her books at 99 cents, and how she used some atypical (for the genre) cover art to find her target audience.

Here’s some of what we covered in more detail:

  • How Amanda launched her novel without professional editing or a cover that she loved but made it work anyway.
  • Combining 99 cents, Kindle Unlimited, and a story written for a niche audience to find success.
  • What level of sex readers are looking for in the science fiction romance category.
  • Some popular story types in the genre.
  • What readers expect from the alien abduction trope.
  • The challenges of writing strong female characters and balancing them with some of the romance tropes of rescues or abductions.
  • Using the cover, especially in romance genres, to signal to the reader what to expect as far as heat level, in particular.
  • Why Amanda has stuck with 99 cents so long for her books.
  • Whether novellas and shorter stories can work in scifi romance.
  • Using a Facebook page and Facebook groups to connect with readers.
  • Pre-orders or no pre-orders?

You can visit Amanda Milo on Facebook or check out her Amazon page to try out her novels. Her Facebook group, Amanda Milo’s Minions, is also accepting new minions.

 

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SFFMP 143: Writing Quickly, Sci-Fi Anthologies, and Networking with Other Authors with Craig Martelle

Author Interview, Podcast

Today, science fiction author Craig Martelle joined us to talk about how he’s gotten rolling so quickly, publishing 20 novels in two years, spearheading three anthologies, and becoming super involved in the popular 20Booksto50K Facebook group, where he’s helping to put together a couple of huge conferences for indie authors.

Here are some of the specifics on what we covered:

  • Jumping right in with a schedule to write and publish books quickly.
  • Target word counts and planning out series ahead of time.
  • Differences in post-apocalyptic and space opera genres.
  • Reasons for putting together anthologies and how to make them profitable.
  • Networking with other authors online and in person.
  • Whether marketing and business should play a role in how you choose the next books you’re going to write.
  • Creating a bundle of starter books once you’ve got multiple series out.
  • What Craig posts on his Facebook page to keep readers interested and sell more books.
  • Asking for reviews at the end of books (and linking back to the book’s page in the store to make it easier for readers).

If you’re interested in signing up for either of the conferences that Craig talked about, here are the links:

20Booksto50K Las Vegas (November 2017): http://20booksvegas.com/
20Booksto50K London (February 2018): http://20bookslondon.com/

Be sure to check out his website and his work on Amazon, such as the first book in his Terry Henry Walton Chronicles.

 

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SFFMP 133: Serials, Reader Magnets, and When to Jump to Full Time

Group Discussion, Podcast

We switched things up this week and had a guest come on and interview us. Lindsay, Jeff, and Jo did their best to answer questions on marketing and publishing from science fiction author (and contest winner) Lon Varnadore.

Here are some of the questions he asked us:

  • Is permafree still viable? What about the 99-cent model?
  • Are there any sub-genres where indies aren’t well-represented?
  • Are authors still publishing serials and how well are they working now?
  • When does it make sense to make the jump to being a full-time author?
  • Are you guys using “reader magnets” to get people onto your lists, and how effective is this?
  • Kindle Unlimited or wide?
  • Has your marketing advice changed from when you started this podcast in September 2014 to now?
  • And the most important: if you could switch place with one of your characters, which would it be?

You can visit Lon on his website and also grab his first novel, Mostly Human, for free on Amazon and in other spots.

 

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SFFMP 128: Kindle Unlimited, Perma 99-Cents, and ACX vs. Traditional Audiobook Publishers with Anthony J. Melchiorri

Author Interview, Podcast

It’s not every week that we get authors with PhDs in science on the show (though we’ve had a few!), but today Anthony J Melchiorri joined us. By day, he uses his PhD in bioengineering to develop cellular therapies and 3D-printable artificial organs, and by night, he writes medical thrillers, post-apocalyptic fiction, and space opera. So far, he’s best-known for his Tide series.

Here’s some of what we chatted about:

  • How Anthony’s background led him to start writing medical thrillers with a science fiction twist.
  • How those books didn’t sell as well as he’d hoped and he ended up writing post-apocalyptic fiction.
  • PA fiction having a really rabid reader base that wants more books than are out there.
  • How you might be able to find a good subgenre on Amazon to exploit by looking for ones where books with poor covers are selling well.
  • Whether his Kindle Worlds project was worth it as far as time and money invested in it went.
  • If authors with tons of in-depth scientific knowledge can still expect to get “corrected” by well-meaning readers.
  • Concerns about possibly including too much science in the stories when you have that in-depth knowledge.
  • Marketing in the various different genres (space opera, post apocalyptic, and medial thrillers) and why some do well in Kindle Unlimited and others don’t.
  • Trying a perma- or long-term 99 cent price on a Book 1.
  • The differences in producing your own audiobooks through ACX and going with a publisher — Blackstone Audio is doing Anthony’s Eternal Frontier series.
  • Challenges in marketing audiobooks and what works.

You can find Anthony on his website, on Facebook, or check out his books on Amazon. If you want to try his fiction, Book 1 in the Tide series or Book 1 in the Eternal Frontier series would be good starts.

 

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SFFMP 119: Surveying Readers, Instafreebie, and Tips for Multi-Author Promotions with C. Gockel

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, we brought back Carolynn Gockel, author of the I Bring the Fire urban fantasy series and the Archangel Project science fiction trilogy, for a third time. She publishes a book about every 7 months and is making a nice full-time living as an author because she’s very proactive with marketing her work, and she’s participating in a lot of multi-author boxed sets and anthologies, as well as joint author promotional efforts. We asked her about what’s working well for marketing right now and also about surveying readers for useful information.

Here are a few more specifics:

  • Straddling KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited and “wide” — Carolynn has one series exclusive with Amazon and one series available in all the stores.
  • Surveying readers for information useful in writing and marketing.
  • She uses Survey Monkey for her surveys (they have a free version, though it’s limited so she pays the monthly fee for the months she wants to run some).
  • Asking fellow authors in similar genres to survey their readers (she sets it all up and uses her SM account) to get more data.
  • Carolynn continues to find putting together multi-author anthologies and boxed sets to be valuable — she makes money doing it and also gets a lot of new readers checking out her books.
  • Why she does a mix of free and 99-cent anthologies and boxed sets, and why she’s also done some specifically targeting Kindle Unlimited readers.
  • Her thoughts on collections of original material versus putting in older books.
  • What a new author needs to have to be considered for a multi-author boxed set by folks experienced at putting them together.
  • Getting into swapping book announcements with other authors with good-sized mailing lists.
  • The pros and cons of using Instafreebie for giving away books and building a mailing list.
  • Which types of anthologies Bookbub will possibly accept and run.

You can visit Carolynn on her website or check out her books on Amazon and (for the I Bring the Fire series) all the other vendors. Her latest release, Heretic, is available on Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited.

You can also listen to her previous shows here:

SFFMP 19: Making Books Permafree, Where to Buy Sponsorships, and Tumblr with C. Gockel

SFFMP 62: Anthologies, New Covers, and Creating Boxed Sets to Increase Sales with C. Gockel

 

 

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SFFMP 109: Paperbacks, Bookbub PPC Ads, and Is Kindle Unlimited Bad for Authors?

Group Discussion, Podcast

We had a few technical issues on the show tonight and ended up recording it in three Zoom sessions rather than in Google Hangouts, but hopefully things will get spliced together, and you won’t notice too many hiccups. Jo, Lindsay, and Jeff chatted about their experiences with being wide (in all the stores) versus having some series in Amazon KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited. They also answered some listener questions and covered everything from using Bookbub PPC ads to how long series should be to how they price their books.

Here are a few more of the specifics they went over:

  • If Kindle Unlimited is bad for authors and whether we should be objecting to being exclusive with Amazon on principle.
  • Whether you should hold off on releasing your first book until your second book is ready to go.
  • How the business and taxes side of things works for self-publishers in the U.S.
  • Using Books2Read universal links to tidy up your newsletters and make it so you only need to share around one link.
  • Jo’s results and sales percentages after being wide for many years.
  • How permafree has ceased to get as many downloads and be as effective for Jo in the last two years.
  • When it’s worth it to release paperbacks (and some of the benefits to having them done).
  • When it’s worth doing audiobooks: see Lindsay’s blog post on Audiobook Options for Indie Authors.
  • How long it took the guys to turn a profit with self-publishing.
  • How long should a series be before things begin to taper down and successive books aren’t as profitable?
  • What’s the best time of year to launch a new book or series?
  • How do you determine the best price for a novel or novella?
  • How long should you put a book on pre-order for?
  • When in a book’s life does it make sense to rebrand and do a new cover, blurb, title, etc.?
  • Thoughts on Vellum for ebook formatting.

If you’re stopping by before December 15th, 2016, you can grab books by both Jo and Lindsay in the Leading Ladies Fantasy Bundle at StoryBundle.

Also check out Lindsay’s short story, “Remnants” in the You Are Here anthology.

If you haven’t tried Jeff’s mysteries yet, the first one is available in Kindle Unlimited on Amazon. Or you can grab his first Tales of Lentari book for free.

 

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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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