rwa – Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

SFFMP 221: Whether Awards Are Worth Trying for, Marketing Fantasy Romance, and Being Active in SFWA and RWA

February 19, 2019 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

This week, we chatted with RITA award-winning fantasy romance author Jeffe Kennedy. She started her career writing non-fiction, shifted to romance and fantasy romance with traditional publishing, and now does some self-publishing as well. We asked her about whether awards are worth trying for, her thoughts on the professional organizations SFWA and RWA, and what she’s tried and liked for marketing over the years.

Here are some of the specific topics we touched on:

Getting started in fantasy romance before it became a thing (we debated if it’s yet come into its own).
Whether fantasy romance (secondary world/epic fantasy rather than Earth-centric paranormal romance) is a growing market now.
Tropes romance readers will expect, even if a story is SF/F.
How much “romance” has to be in a story for it to be considered sci-fi or fantasy romance?
Jeffe’s thoughts on whether authors should get involved in RWA or SFWA, the professional organizations for the romance and SF/F genres.
Awards you can enter versus awards you have to be nominated for.
Jeffe’s experience entering the RITA awards each year and having a winner in 2017.
Whether awards are worth pursuing and if they can increase readership.
Jeffe’s thoughts on blogging and social media, and her preferred platforms.
Getting reviews from book bloggers.
Joining with other authors in your genre to put out anthologies of novellas.
Jeffe’s First Cup of Coffee podcast.
Putting out content each week for readers, whether blog posts or podcasts or social media updates.

You can visit Jeffe on her website and check out the award-winning The Pages of the Mind or the first book in her current series, Sorcerous Moons: Lonen’s War.

You can also check out her First Cup of Coffee podcast.

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SFFMP 42: Selling More on iBooks, Boxed Set Strategies, and Using Pre-Orders to Hit Bestseller Lists

August 4, 2015 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

Hey, everyone! We shared a lot of information today. We answered a few reader questions and then jumped into Lindsay’s notes from some of the panels at the RWA Con. The topics included selling more books on Apple’s iBooks, setting up multi-author boxed sets, using pre-orders to hit bestseller lists (such as USA Today and the NY Times), and a handful of mistakes to avoid as an author (these were different than some of the mistakes we’ve already shared in the past).

Here’s a closer look at the notes and the links we mentioned on the podcast:

Making the USA Today bestseller list with a multi-author boxed set
Getting bookmarks and other author swag made
John L. Monk‘s report on his experiences with Vellum for ebook formatting.
Getting started using a pen name and potential selling/legal complications
Starting up your own podcast as promo for your work (or just for schmoozing authors)
Short stories, selling them individually versus bundling them into a collection (an article on getting inexpensive covers for short stories/serials done on Fiverr)
Selling foreign rights as an indie (using an agent who specializes in foreign rights or finding a contract consultant that specializes in publishing for a one-time deal)
Paying for your own translations and the costs (upwards of $10,000 for a 80,000-word novel)
Where to consider looking for deals/rights sales — for example, Germany is popular with science fiction and fantasy authors.
Babelcube and other sites that connect authors with translators for royalty splits might not be quite there yet (tough to find experienced high-quality translators).
Respecting the tropes and giving people what they want/expect to sell more
Be “the author” on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter — readers will follow, expecting to be entertained, so keep personal stuff to a minimum
Interested in Facebooks ads? Maybe check out Amy Porterfield’s site and podcast.
More on Lindsay’s experience with a boxed set and hitting the USA Today list.
Using different pen names for different series in different genres
How to appear in more popular authors’ also-boughts on Amazon
Apple affiliate program and adding specific iBooks links to the backs of your Apple ebooks
Requesting your 250 free promo codes on Apple to giveaway your iBooks to early reviewers/bloggers/etc.
The best day to release a book if you hope to make a best seller’s list (and how many sales it takes for the USA Today list versus the NYT list)
Using Thunderclap or Headtalker to help with a release
Setting up “asset-less” pre-orders up to a year in advance on Apple