Tag: publishing

SFFMP 213: Marketing Plans for 2019, Meta Data and SEO Explained, and Which Advertising Platforms are Best for Authors?

Group Discussion, Podcast

We recorded early this week, since Christmas is on a Tuesday, so we hope you enjoy the show while you’re traveling or after you’ve had fun with the holidays. The three of us answered listener questions that covered the range from what the heck is meta data and SEO to what kind of marketing we plan to try in 2019 and which advertising platforms we’ve found best for their books.

Here’s a list of the questions as well as some Bookbub-related links that Lindsay promised:

  • How do you market cross-over fiction such as a mix between urban fantasy and near-future-SF?
  • Is urban fantasy with a lighter humorous note a trend now?
  • What is meta data and SEO, and does it matter for authors?
  • How much value is there to in-house promos on the various retailers, such as prime reading on Amazon, the promo tab on Kobo, and Apple and B&N features?
  • What new will Jo, Jeff, and Lindsay be trying in 2019 in regard to marketing?
  • Are book blog tours worth your time as an author?
  • What should you do to build buzz and sell books if you don’t have money to spend on advertising?
  • Who are the guys’ favorite authors and how did they influence them?
  • How do you go about improving as a novelist and keeping new books from being too much like what you’ve written before?
  • Have you tried to publish your audiobooks on Spotify?
  • Do you need an ISBN for an Amazon paperback and a different one for an IngramSpark paperback?
  • What’s the biggest thing you learned/realized in 2018, and how will that change your approach to publishing in 2019?
  • How would you go about calculating ROI for advertising a series that doesn’t have a set reading order? Whenever people talk about this calculation, it always hinges on figuring out your readthrough, but if the series has multiple entry points and you can skip books, what then?
  • What do you find is the most effective platform for authors for ads?
  • What marketing avenues would you recommend for authors who aren’t big fans of marketing?
  • How have your audiobook sales done for your different series? Does releasing a new audiobook for a backlist book help boost sales?
  • What’s going on if you’re struggling to get impressions and clicks are expensive for Bookbub ads? (Links: All About Bookbub CPM Ads and Becoming a #1 Bestseller on Amazon with Adam Croft, Bookbub Insights Blog for Authors, The Best Bookbub Ads of 2018)
  • Can you change your author name on Amazon after you’ve published a book?

 

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SFFMP 193: Marketing and Publishing Advice for Newer Authors

Group Discussion, Podcast

This week, Lindsay, Jo, and Jeff geared the show toward newer authors getting ready to publish their first books or with a few titles out. They answered some questions and tried to offer advice based on what’s working for folks getting started now.

Here are some of the specifics that were touched on:

  • More options for photoshop fantasy and science fiction covers with models from NeoStock and Period Images.
  • Google Play coming on strong as a contender.
  • Profiting from AMS advertising.
  • Moving from CreateSpace to KDP Print.
  • What to do to gain traction when you move from KDP Select and out into the other stores.
  • What to do when your first book is cross-genre and doesn’t fit well into the current categories on Amazon and other stores.
  • How do you find a good editor?
  • Should you try to save up three or more books for rapid release when you’re a new author?
  • The importance of having realistic expectations.
  • What you can do to start building up a list of buyers before you launch your first novel.
  • What are some low-cost advertising options.
  • What can you do for marketing if you’re shy?
  • If you’ve written three books in a series and haven’t had much success, should you pull the plug?
  • What are some of the best marketing services for space opera/SF?

 

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SFFMP 183: Succeeding on a Book a Year with CW Lamb

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, scifi and fantasy author CW Lamb joined us to talk about how he got his start in 2014, how KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited helped him launch his first book to great success, and why he’s sought out an agent and is also looking for a traditional deal.

Here are some of the specifics we discussed:

  • What it was like to start in 2014 and launch into KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited.
  • Having early success in the space adventure/military SF category.
  • Keeping books selling on a relatively modest release schedule.
  • Leveraging a solid sales history into getting an agent.
  • How controversial reviews might help sell books.
  • Why Charles feels pursuing a traditional route might help him reach a wider audience.
  • The price points he’s experimented with.
  • What he’s learned since his first launch and what a book launch looks like for him now.
  • Keeping multiple series going and selling in different genres.
  • His thoughts on doing pre-orders on Amazon.
  • Why he would launch into KDP Select again now if he was a new author starting out.

You can visit Charles (CW) on his website and check out his books on Amazon. ALICE starts of his scifi series, and The Lost Ranger is the first in his new fantasy series.

 

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SFFMP 150: Paranormal Romance and Publishing/Marketing Outside of the U.S. with Nalini Signh

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, paranormal romance author Nalini Singh joined us to talk about her genre, her experiences getting a traditional U.S. publisher when she was living in New Zealand, and how things have evolved over the 14 years that she’s been publishing. She’s best known for her Psy Changling and Guild Hunter series, and she’s also dipped her toes in the self-publishing waters with her contemporary romance series, Rock Kiss.

Here are some specifics of what we covered:

  • Differences to the publishing process when based in New Zealand or another country as opposed to the US or UK.
  • How paranormal romance is doing trend-wise now and whether publishers are looking for it.
  • The difference between urban fantasy and paranormal romance.
  • The importance of being consistent and not getting details wrong in a long series (Nalini keeps a story bible).
  • Some of the pros and cons of continuing a long-running series.
  • How helpful book review blogs can be if you can get your novels picked up.
  • Sending out ARC copies well in advance of the publication date.
  • Which social media sites Nalini likes and what she does on the different ones.
  • How she’s building her mailing list and working to keep fans happy.
  • How often you have to publish these days to stay relevant and grow a fan base.

Check out Nalini’s newest release Archangel’s Viper (out September 26th) and visit her on her website, Facebook, or Twitter.

 

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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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Marketing and E-Publishing Predictions for 2015 — what we believe will still work and what won’t

Group Discussion, Podcast

We have guests scheduled for January, so this should be the last show with just the three of us for a while. We discussed whether marketing and selling books got harder for indie authors in 2014 and, since there are only a couple of days left in the year, we gave some publishing predictions and some marketing trends that we believe could come to pass in 2015. At the end, we also shared a few of our own writing/publishing resolutions for next year.

Here’s a look at some of the topics we covered:

  • How has Kindle Unlimited effected us and will authors continue to have to deal with subscription services (possibly more of them from Amazon competitors) as time goes on?
  • Are things getting tougher, and was it indeed the year of the quitter, as discussed in Kris Rusch’s Things Indie Writers Learned in 2014?
  • How networking and collaboration on projects and marketing may become even more important to authors in the future
  • Will multi-author bundles still be popular, or will they be replaced by something else?
  • We might see more co-authoring, shared worlds, and pen names where multiple authors write under the name to increase the number of annual releases
  • Pre-orders, are they useful now and how might one take advantage of the benefits in the future?
  • How Lindsay started a new pen name in October of 2014 and did well with it, even as a completely “new” (anonymous) author: Pen Name Launch 1 (results after 1 month) & Pen Name Launch 2 (results after 10 weeks)

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