wattpad – Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

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

February 27, 2018 SFFpodcast 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 136: Successfully Indie Publishing and Marketing While Running a Family

June 13, 2017 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

YA fantasy author Katie Cross joins us this week to discuss how she’s published eleven books while working and raising a family, and how she’s sold a lot of those books too!

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

Finding time to write when you have a job and a family.
Whether YA ebooks do well and some of the challenges of self-publishing for that audience.
Some of the defining features of young adult fiction.
Keeping books selling when you’re not able to publish super frequently.
Selling well in the YA market.
Using Wattpad as a platform to gain readers and potentially get recognition.
Getting invited to the Wattpad advertising program and how much authors can make.
Getting more interaction and reads on Wattpad by asking questions at the end of installments and posting regularly (Katie was posting M/W/F for one of her books).
Tips for getting a Bookbub ad.
Facebook marketing and Facebook groups.
Determining which marketing is worth your time when your time is limited.
What Katie’s typical launch strategy looks like.

Visit Katie on her website or on Facebook and check out her YA fantasy books. You can also join her “indie author life” Facebook group for advice on self-publishing and marketing.

Note: Katie realized she had her numbers a little off in our chat about her Bookbub ad, so she sent me this correction to post here:

“In the podcast I share my BookBub numbers several times and mention selling 3,500 books on Amazon with my recent ad, but I checked back on those numbers and it was close to 3,000 books WIDE on all distributors including paperback and audiobooks (which are also affected by BookBubs) and includes all sales overall (including spillover into the other books in my series). <— This encompasses just the first week.

So it was not just my BookBub ad book that reached those numbers. I wish! Historically, however, by the end of the month, it’s likely I will reach 4,000—or beyond it—in sales from the BookBub tail. I have in the past seen upwards of those numbers from BookBub ads.

So sorry for that mess up! Transparency is really important to me so I wanted to add that caveat here. 🙂“

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bookbub, Facebook groups, Katie Cross, marketing, wattpad, wattpad advertising, ya fantasy

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

February 7, 2017 SFFpodcast 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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amazon, drew hayes, going wide, kdp select, patreon, platform building, podcasting, super heroes, urban fantasy, wattpad, web serials

SFFMP 91: Set-It-and-Forget-It Marketing and Selling Well in Non-Amazon Bookstores

July 26, 2016 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

Today, Jeff, Jo, and Lindsay talked about their strategies for selling books in the non-Amazon bookstores, such as Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Smashwords, and Apple. They also discussed some of the tactics they’ve used over the years that they would consider “set it and forget it marketing.” These are things they did once and that have continued to result in book sales month in and month out.

They also addressed some listener questions about Amazon ebook giveaways and setting up author newsletters. (Here’s a link to the WordPress plug-in that Jeff uses: Newsletter.)

Lindsay went into some details about the successful launch of her recent science fiction series, including the promos she scheduled and how and why she went about creating a new mailing list just for the sci-fi.

Here are the promo sites she used (these will accept new releases, but sometimes require that an author have previously published books with good reviews): Fussy Librarian, Ereader News Today, Books Butterfly, Free Kindle Books and Tips, and Bknights. Lindsay forgot to mention it, but ENT and Books Butterfly were the most worth it in terms of delivering sales, at least for her title in this case.

Links to Jo’s DeviantArt people:

The digital sculptor of Squee the Funk was Liz Landis.

The Sculptor that won the acclaim on DA was Viistar, and here’s the post of Jo’s project: http://viistar.deviantart.com/art/Ivy-Turn-620932412

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amazon, apple, barnes & noble, draft 2 digital, google play, kobo, smashwords, wattpad

SFFMP 67: YA Sci-Fi, Being a Hybrid Author, and Tips for Writers with Beth Revis

February 9, 2016 SFFpodcast Author Interview, Podcast

Today, we’re talking to YA science fiction author, Beth Revis, about being a hybrid author, the differences in traditional publishing and self-publishing, and marketing from both sides of the fence. In addition to her fiction, she has published three books for writers: Some Writing Advice, Some Publishing Advice, and Some Marketing Advice.

Here’s some of what we talked about:

Traditionally publishing her Across the Universe series after a thousand rejections.
What her publisher brought to the table as far as marketing and promotion.
Why she decided to self publish The Body Electric.
Marketing venues you can get into with a traditional publisher behind you (and the challenges of getting into the same spots as an indie).
Giveaways and contests and what kind of prizes she uses to inspire fan art.
Beth’s tips for getting an agent and a publisher (she recommends batch querying to test your query letter, sample pages, etc. before flinging your queries out to everyone in the database)?
Using QueryTracker to find agents suitable for your genre (newer agents may be quicker to respond and more eager to find clients than established veterans)
How Beth decides if a project is more suitable for self-publishing or if it might appeal to a traditional publisher.
Getting involved with more than Facebook when it comes to social media (she recommends Instagram and Tumblr especially for YA authors).
Occasionally Tweeting or Facebook posting about the perks of being on your mailing list (such as that you’ll debut book covers or teasers to subscribers)
Using apps like Word Swag and sites like Canva.com to take fun quotes from your book and turn them into graphics that are more shareable on social media.
Using Wattpad as a way to organize non-fiction projects and also to get exposure to the YA readers out there.

If you’re interested in Beth’s books for writers, the links to all three are up above. If you want to check out her fiction, you can find her novels and short stories on Amazon or get more information on her website. Her latest novel, A World Without You, will be available in July (you can pre-order it now). She’s on social media in all of the usual places too, so stop by and say hi!