Tag: urban fantasy

SFFMP 223: Marketing Audiobooks, Pen Names, Differences in Distributors, and What to Do When You Just Have One Book

Group Discussion, Podcast

The guys are taking a break from the podcast (if you have comments or suggestions for what you’d like to see if we bring it back in a couple of months, please leave them!), but we answered another pile of listener questions today amid a few doggie interruptions, ahem.

Here are the specific questions we addressed:

  • How do you approach marketing an audiobook? Advertising specifically to audiobook listeners? Or reliance on general traffic to your product page combined with having the audiobook simultaneously with ebook release?
  • Would any of you consider doing another “start from scratch” pen name experiment?
  • Let’s say an indie author has exactly one (1) book out. Let’s also say they didn’t do the rapid release thing at *all*, nor much in the way of ads. Is the best practice still “finish the series and build a backlist”? Or should they try some ads?
  • 1. Is $2.99 too much to ask for a 60k urban fantasy as a new writer? 2. Do you guys have any tips on what you would do if you were starting out as a new author?
  • What is the difference between Draft to Digital and Publish Drive? (Joanna Penn’s episode with the founder of Publish Drive.)
  • Do any of you use photos of yourself in the “about the author” section of your books like trade pub does?
  • ISBNs – Should we get our own or just use the free ones provided by Amazon, etc? What’s the difference? Pros and cons of each?
  • Affiliate links – What do they do? Where do we get them? Proper usage?
  • Writing workshops – How can writers find them? Is there a way to see if they are good/worth the money? Are there online options?
  • Top 100 – What does it mean to be in the top 100? What can be learned by looking at the top 100 in genres we might be writing in?
  • What kind of checklist of things do each of you do when preparing to release a book? IE Reviewing editorial notes, getting a copyright…
  • You mentioned in the most recent episode that you thought Also Boughts on Amazon might be on the way out. Does that mean pen names aren’t important anymore? If they are, is it worth republishing books under pen names if they aren’t the same genres?

 

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SFFMP 212: How to Find Success in Urban Fantasy with Ramy Vance

Author Interview, Podcast

Lindsay got to meet lots of cool authors at the 20Books conference in Las Vegas this fall, and today’s guest was one of those people. Urban fantasy author Ramy Vance was involved in the traditional publishing world for years, but when it came time to publish his fiction, he decided to go indie. He’s written a number of novels and started a new series this past summer, Mortality Bites, where he’s had some of his best success yet. We asked him about it and what he did right and wrong to start selling a significant number of books in the urban fantasy genre.

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

  • How Ramy was first involved in the traditional publishing world and what it taught him about the business.
  • The logistics of getting into libraries and how subsidiary rights trading works.
  • Tools you can use to do your own public relations if you’re hoping for attention from the traditional world (he mentioned SimilarWeb as a resource for analyzing those business’s websites but also said it’s expensive and that our time, as indie authors, may be better invested in writing the next book).
  • Whether it’s worth jumping into urban fantasy as a newer author or if it’s tough to gain traction since it’s so competitive.
  • Making use of some of the popular tropes to attract regular genre readers but then doing fun and creative stuff on the side.
  • Ramy’s experience with going exclusive with Amazon for this series and how advertising and tactics can be different whether one is only selling books or whether selling is secondary to getting borrows and page reads in Kindle Unlimited.
  • How he experimented with adding a sample chapter at the end of his books and found that sales/borrows of the subsequent books were better when he took that out.
  • How different advertising platforms sent different types of traffic (i.e. he got more sales from Facebook and more Kindle Unlimited borrows from AMS ads).
  • His mailing list versus his Facebook group and what he’s prioritizing right now.
  • Experimenting with Instagram.
  • How writing six books before releasing the first one helped him to rapid release and get a leg up.
  • How he approached more than a dozen big-name authors in the genre and found many willing to support him at launch time.
  • Plans for audiobooks through Podium Publishing.
  • Whether to invest in advertising to direct people to your back-list books or to focus on selling the new stuff.

If you’re an urban fantasy fan, make sure to check out the first book in Ramy’s Mortality Bites series on Amazon. You can also see what he’s up to on his website and check out his reader Facebook group: Ramy Vance’s House of the GoneGod Dead.

 

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SFFMP 177: Paying the Bills as an LGBT Urban Fantasy Author with Holly Evans

Author Interview, Podcast

We’re joined this week by LGBT urban fantasy author Holly Evans. She believes LGBT spec-fic is an up and coming sub-genre with a lot of potential, and even though it’s niche, she’s able to pay the bills writing it. Whether you’re interested in it or not, a lot of today’s interview should apply to any author thinking of writing in a smaller niche. Interestingly, Holly found more of an audience when she went wide with her books than when she was exclusive with Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited.

Here are some of the specifics that we covered:

  • Getting started in the crowded urban fantasy market.
  • Tropes for urban fantasy and also for LGBT fiction.
  • Why LGBT spec-fic may be an up-and-coming market with room for new authors to jump in.
  • What qualifies something as LGBT (i.e. do the main characters have to fall into that category?)?
  • If romance is expected and how explicit sex scenes should be if included.
  • The pros and cons of selecting the LGBT category on Amazon and other stores (easier to rank versus perhaps being overlooked by people who don’t think they’re looking for that).
  • Avoiding stereotypes.
  • Why Holly decided to leave KDP Select and publish her books to all the other stores.
  • How she’s found success in the other stores in only a few months.
  • Writing shorter series and wrapping individual books up so you can start new ones easily.
  • Whether there are any downsides to writing short.

You can visit Holly on her site and check out her books in all the major stores. Her newest series, Forged in Blood, is out now.

 

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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 146: Relaunching an Old Series to Success and Hitting Lists with a Multi-Author Boxed Set with Ella Summers

Author Interview, Podcast

We recorded early today to accommodate our guest living in Switzerland, urban fantasy author Ella Summers. She has three paranormal and fantasy series that sell very well on Amazon: Legion of Angels, Dragon Born, and the recently relaunched Sorcery and Science. She was also a part of the big Dominion Rising multi-author boxed set that recently released and sold over 30,000 copies (we first interviewed the organizer, Gwynn White, about this boxed set back in April when it was on pre-order). We talked about tropes and expectations in urban fantasy, and also about rebranding and relaunching an old series that didn’t sell well originally.

Here are are few of the details we touched on:

  • Why Ella likes 60-70,000 words for her novels.
  • What readers of urban fantasy expect and when it’s okay to add non-standard elements (Ella mixes in science fiction and steampunk elements in her various series).
  • The strategy she recently used to relaunch her first series, which wasn’t a big seller and didn’t mesh with her existing brand.
  • Not being afraid to edit books in a series and do more than simply changing covers and blurbs when relaunching it.
  • Some popular tropes in urban fantasy.
  • How urban fantasy does in Kindle Unlimited today and if the niche is getting too crowded.
  • The tactics the authors in the Dominion Rising boxed set used to get tens of thousands of sales.
  • Branding covers not just within a series but across an author’s entire body of work.

You can find Ella on her website and check out her books on Amazon, including the first book in her best-selling Legion of Angels series.

 

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SFFMP 141: Succeeding in Urban Fantasy, Collaborating, and Quitting the Day Job with CN Crawford

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, we chatted with urban fantasy authors Christine and Nick Crawford who write under the name CN Crawford. Christine has recently been able to quit the day job and go full time with the writing. After starting out publishing one book in 2014 and one in 2015, they got rolling in 2016, and now have several series going and selling well. We talked about urban fantasy and what it’s taking to succeed right now.

Here are some of the specific details from our conversation:

  • Collaborating as a husband and wife team.
  • Dealing with differences of opinion when your writing partner is your spouse.
  • Whether it takes anything special to break into the popular urban fantasy niche.
  • Thoughts on upcoming trends for urban fantasy.
  • Whether the genre expects male or female protagonists.
  • Giving away a free extra that ties into your main series in order to entice newsletter signups.
  • Using Bookfunnel to facilitate ebook giveaways.
  • Predominantly using Amazon and Facebook ads and not doing much with the typical promo sites.

Find them on their website or join their CN Crawford Facebook group. If you’re on Amazon, you can check out the first books in the Dark Fae FBI series or Demons of Fire and Night.

 

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SFFMP 126: Breaking Out, Five Figure Months, and Writing in Someone Else’s World

Author Interview, Podcast

Fantasy author Justin Sloan joins us this week to talk about why the traditional “just write the next book” advice may not always be the right tactic for every author in every stage of his career. He also discusses how he broke out and went from small successes to big ones when he started reaching out to other authors for collaborations. He ended up working with Michael Anderle and co-writing a series with him in his popular Kurtherian Gambit world. Since then, he’s started selling a lot more books, and he just quit his day job to write full time.

Here are a few more details of what we covered:

  • Why Justin thinks some of his series have done significantly better than others.
  • The challenges of writing series in lots of different subgenres of fantasy instead of sticking with one.
  • How he reached out to other authors and was very proactive in finding people to collaborate with.
  • How he got into co-writing a series with Michael Anderle in Michael’s world, and what it’s meant for his career.
  • Whether face-to-face or phone meetings are necessary for co-writing or it can all be done through email and Google Docs or some such.
  • Managing the finances and accounting when writing with several different authors on different projects.
  • Why Facebook can be such a powerful marketing tool and what to post on your page.
  • Posting snippets of up-coming books to get readers excited before the release.

Please visit Justin’s website to learn more about his work and grab some free books, or like his author page on Facebook to see what he’s doing there.

Justin is also the co-author of the Creative Writing Career Podcast. Check it out if you’re looking for another show to listen to.

 

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

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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SFFMP 117: Keeping Multiple Series Selling, Jumping Genres, and Launching a New Series with Glynn Stewart

Author Interview, Podcast

We’re chatting with return guest Glynn Stewart today. He’s the author of three space adventure series and recently launched an urban fantasy/superhero fantasy series. Despite genre hopping, he did great with the urban fantasy launch, so we asked him about his strategies for getting the sales rolling with a new series in a new genre, and we also had him compare his launch experience with superhero/urban fantasy versus space opera/military SF (he also launched a new military SF series over the summer).

Some more details of what we discussed:

  • How Jeff’s Amazon account was canceled without warning and the hoops he had to jump through to get it reinstated.
  • What made Glynn decide to start a 3rd and 4th series this year when his old series were still going.
  • Some of the challenges of publishing in the urban fantasy right now (and why it can be useful if your book can go into another smaller category as well).
  • Going against the tropes in military SF (and selling well anyway) with a female protagonist.
  • Some genres Glynn finds interesting but wouldn’t devote time to right now since those categories aren’t big sellers.
  • The challenges of writing across genres.
  • Keeping multiple series selling when you’re alternating book releases between four series.
  • Best strategies for launching a new series right.
  • Does it make sense to do shared worlds or cross universes between your series when you’ve got different ones going?

For more information, you can check out our last show with Glynn: Episode 73: Mixing Genres, Best Categories for Cross-Genre Fiction, and KDP Select vs. Going Wide.

Also check out Glynn’s books on Amazon or visit him on his website. He’s also on Facebook!

 

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SFFMP 104: Competing in the Crowded Urban Fantasy Genre with Domino Finn

Author Interview, Podcast

Tough guy urban fantasy author Domino Finn joins Lindsay and Jeff this week to analyze urban fantasy, talk about why his series took off, why others don’t, and what some of the expected tropes are in the genre.

Here’s some of what we covered:

  • Analyzing the market to figure out why your books aren’t selling, then readjusting and launching a new series that’s more in line with expectations.
  • Finding an underserved market within a very popular and competitive genre.
  • Launching a book and having it stick on Amazon even without a lot of advertising dollars behind it.
  • Why Domino broke the mold and went with a first-person blurb for Dead Man.
  • Writing to market versus writing something that’s original and you with some marketable elements.
  • Can posting on forums actually help sell books?
  • Domino’s experiences with going wide, and why he’s sticking with KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited for now.
  • Putting together an anthology/boxed set with other authors writing the same type of UF and contributing original content.
  • Predictions for where the genre might go next.

You can visit Domino Finn at his website and check out his first Black Magic Outlaw book, Dead Man, on Amazon. If you’d like to try the anthology he’s in with several other authors, it’s only 99 cents right now on Amazon: Full Metal Magic.

 

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