military science fiction – Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

SFFMP 103: From Spy Thrillers to Bestselling Military Science Fiction with Richard Fox

October 18, 2016 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Military science fiction author (and former spy thriller author) Richard Fox joined us on the show today. We talked about his early books and his thriller series, which never impressed him hugely with sales, and then how he moved onto a different genre last year. In June, 2015, he published his first Ember War military sci-fi title and has since gone on to publish a total of 8 novels in the series. They’ve sold great, and he has over 400 reviews of his first book.

Here’s some of what we covered:

Transitioning from historical fiction to spy thrillers to space adventure novels (and whether those audiences will cross over at all).
What made Richard decide to genre hop over to science fiction.
How he learned from some of his mistakes on his first series to have a solid launch with the Ember War books.
How he’s used his military experience in his novels.
Finishing one series and starting a spinoff as another entry point for potential readers.
Using Facebook ads on a slow trickle to keep sales up of a Book 1 that’s been out for a while.
How Richard’s Kindle Unlimited borrow money compares to his book sales and why he hasn’t gone wide.
What Richard’s first launch looked like, and what he’s doing with new books today to get his readers to buy right away.

You can visit Richard on his site or say hello to him on Facebook. Try the first book in his Ember War series on Amazon.

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military science fiction, richard fox, scifi, space opera, spy thrillers

SFFMP 71: Blurbs That Sell, 99-Cent Price Points, and Military SF with Amy J. Murphy

March 8, 2016 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Debut military science fiction author Amy J. Murphy joins us to talk about how she had a great run with her first novel (and she’s still having it more than five months later).

Here’s a little of what we discussed:

Funding a Kickstarter campaign as a new author
Getting a start with fan-fiction
Whether she had any challenges publishing military science fiction as a female author
Some of the pitfalls of letting someone else handle your formatting and uploading your books into the various stores
Choosing to go exclusive with Amazon KDP Select as a new author
Using a 99-cent price point on Book 1 to make it easier for readers to try you out and get them locked into the rest of your series
Combatting the infamous 30/90-Day Cliff on Amazon with drip campaigns (periodically doing an advertising promotion)
Using TV show names (Farscape meets Firefly with some Indiana Jones thrown in) in the blurb to give people an idea of what they’re getting right away.
Whether or not sticking keywords in the blurb makes sense and can be done without detrimental results
Using Kindle Samurai to scope out keywords on Amazon