Self Publishing Thread

[themental]

We have a huge thread for querying agents which I love dropping into. I realise most of the lovely people here are pursuing the traditionally published route, but we often get new posts from people interested in independent publishing, so I thought I'd start a thread for that.

This month I am about to launch a new pen name. So I thought I'd post about how I go about researching what to write, researching how to market it, how to set up a new name, how to write a good book FAST, rapid release, mailing lists, advertising, promotions, strategies etc.

Hopefully some of this might be helpful whatever way you publish (because I hear trad authors are increasingly expected to take on the marketing load) - and I'm hoping others will share their tips and advice too .

Some caveats that are probably important...

SP shouldn't be seen an alternative to TP. If you have a book that you think should be traditionally published, it's probably not a good idea to self publish that book (because you can't get an agent or whatever). Well, you can switch, but it is always always going to be easier to start with self publishing in mind - and hopefully the why behind that becomes clear when you research the market. There are books that should be trad published and books that should be indie published.

Also...

I'm not an expert not do I claim to be. I often get PMs asking me the basics so this is a place to direct people and save me writing the same stuff loads of times (not that I grudge it AT ALL!). And hopefully the collective wisdom will be better than one person's opinion.

With that said, welcome 🙏🏻 (that's me praying people actually come haha)

@Fishypants yes indeed.

Promo stacking works on the theory that Amazon likes to see steady growth on a book.

So if you can give a book enough momentum, it'll start soaring all on its own.

There are certain paid newsletters that work better than others but it's all genre dependent, so the best thing would be to do your research on what newsletters are working for what genre. You can also try to arrange some swaps with other authors who write similar books to you, if you're good at networking.

The stacking part comes from trying to align them so you go from smallest to largest.

So say I was running a free book for 5 days. My promo would be something like.

Day 1: My 5k newsletter
Day 2: Friends 8k newsletter
Day 3: Paid 20k newsletter

And you'd hope that this would give you a steady increase in downloads each day, and the Zon algorithms would think you had a 'trending' book and start pushing it in front of readers (sending it out in their own NLs and having it show up at the top of search results).

You're a !!

Another question themental!

I have been looking up the links and sites you recommended. Very insightful. Would you say it is worth giving away your first book for free? Or should you keep it at a low price instead?

I've read conflicting accounts and as a psychological thriller writer I wonder what your advice to me would be?

I don't tend to do first books in series free because I never write series long enough to make that profitable (for romance I tend to stick with duets or trilogies). But I do run free days with the promo I spoke about below.

I just had a look through the bestsellers in thrillers, and psych thrillers. It's a tricky genre because it's very trad dominated. That said, there's no reason why you can't find author models and have a look at what they're doing.

I'm seeing lots of $4.99s so provided your book has a cover that is the same standard as the bestsellers, I think it's safe to make that your normal price point. It seems like $1.99 is the price to do Book 1s / promo at, I'm seeing more $1.99s than I am 99c books.

If you switch over to the Free bestsellers list, you'll see the covers aren't up to the caliber of the paid ones. This tells me there aren't a lot of successful authors doing perma free book 1s (this is all just at a glance conclusions, so please don't take it as gospel!). If it was common to have permafree you'd be expecting that chart to look a lot more professional - compare the Free psych thriller chart to the Free romance chart, for example. Romance is filled with really pro looking covers which would suggest it's normal to have perma frees and free days on successful books.

If you can find author models, then you might want to seriously consider what they're doing. Cole Baxter is an interesting one because he looks self published, and he seems to be doing 99c & $2.99 books. His covers look great, and he's ranking well and definitely making 5 figures a month.

You can see who is indie and who is trad by going down to the "Product Details" part of the book page. On an indie book it'll say Sold By Amazon.com Services LLC. On a trad book it'll have a publisher listed too. It's not an exact science but it works most of the time.

I hope that helps a little but basically my answer is study the market. Study the charts. Choose some authors and study what they're doing -- sign up for their mailing lists, follow them on facebook etc. Try to do what you see other successful people in your genre doing.

First book for free...I've only written one. Currently plodding along with another. I admire people who can write multiple books and sell lots of them, that's making a living from writing. Still, I am grateful that I have managed to write one.

Thank you themental. You've inspired me!

themental,

Have you considered doing a tutorial for wannabe indie authors? I would be all ears!

@Fishypants you're welcome

I love talking about this stuff because it inspires me too, so it's kinda selfish in a way

I guess there are so many different sides to it that trying to do a tutorial would be like writing an encyclopaedia and I'm not sure MN is the best place for that, especially since most people here are pursuing a traditional route and seem to fall on the side literary fiction and not genre fiction.

But of course if you can think of a topic or a point you're struggling with then I'm happy to do a brain dump (with the caveat that I'm not an expert, or a guru or whatever, and it'll be my own opinions and what has / hasn't worked for me).

I am feeling guilty asking all these questions but I have so much to ask and you're so helpful!

• Publisher Rocket (the software) have you used it and if so is it worth it? Read lots about it but it costs over £100 so a bit apprehensive...

@Fishypants sorry I dropped out for a wee while, was on a deadline (usually am but my kitchen started leaking into the flat below and it was all a bit of a nightmare 😂)

So... publisher rocket.

I have mixed feelings.

Do I have it? Yes. Was it useful when I started? Yes! Do I use it now, a year on? Never 🙈

I feel like PR is one of those things where you play with it for X amount of hours and then you think 'ahh okay, got it now'. The stats it gives you on keyword usage are best guess estimates, so the results are pretty much what you'd expect if that makes sense?

Example:

Phrase 1) 'Romance with alpha male' is going to be more popular, thus more competitive than Phrase 2) Sci Fi with spiders.

Those are just random phrases obviously. But I think if you are someone who is planning to trend chase a little and write whatever is hot then it can definitely be useful. But if you have a plan for your niche and intend to see it through, then it's probably going to be a hit or a miss? Because you'll naturally find the best keywords for books and it's not like you'll need it for research if you already know what you're going to write.

The two tools I use pretty much every time I go on Amazon are KDP Spy and Helium 10 Extension for Chrome.

Helium is free! You can go onto a book and get an accurate sales rank history from the date it was published, so this can be really useful if you're trying to track benchmarks and things.

KDP Spy I think is in the Rocket price range, and it's a handy little add on that basically does what it says on the tin. You can go onto any search term on Amazon, and it'll give you a list of books under that search term with page length, price, sales rank, and estimated monthly $. Same with any author's home page, so you can see at a glance the shape of their catalogue and get an estimate on how well they're doing. A caveat is that the estimated income is a snapshot, so for example if the book is rank 11 it's going to look like that author is making serious bank, but books rarely stay at rank 11 for the whole month. But again, it's a good benchmark.

They both kinda come with the same caveats as PR though - meaning if you're someone who is willing to change course because you see a market trend emerging and you're willing to make tweaks to your books so you can capitalise, then it's worth it. But if you are going to publish the book the way YOU want, no matter what these market insights are showing you, then it's probably not going to be that useful?

I hope that makes sense! 😁

Hello,
This thread is so informative!
I'm currently wondering about whether I should try to get my novel published (written mostly for fun), so this is all food for thought.

The more the merrier!

Couple of things I've discovered that I wanted to share.

Margie Lawson Academy. Up until now I've mostly been taking courses by Dean Wesley Smith. He knows his stuff for sure but the courses are pretty pricey and they all add up.

Margie offers 'Lecture Packets' of her courses so you can get the whole course in PDF form for $22. I'm working my way through Empowering Characters' Emotions right now and finding it packed full of knowledge. She is / was a psychologist so body language is her specialty. I also have the Visceral Responses one and the Writing Body and Dialogue Cues which I'm going to do next.

https://www.margielawson.com/lecture-packets/

And then also this cool little App called Forest.

You will all think I'm a child but it basically slightly plays on gamification. You set your timer, choose a tree, and you have to work(write) for the duration of the timer in order to plant the tree in your forest.

Sounds dumb as shit but it's shockingly addictive and they have a really nice analytics page that tells you how productive you were each day. I have a competitive personality so it satisfies that 🙂

I sent 4 or 5 submissions off in Feb this year. Just heard back from second - it's a rejection (I expected all of them to be as haven't heard). I wish they hadn't bothered to get back to me as I feel deflated now about self publishing my book. Book is more or less copy edited now and a cover is in the process of being designed. Need to remind myself that I am doing this for me (book probably isn't commercial enough). Not sure I would want an agent even if offered as I like feeling in control of the design/content etc. Not expecting to sell many but at the end of the day it feels like it's all mine.

The Mental or anyone else who has experience of this - can I ask about the retail price of books. If I remember rightly if you charge above a certain amount for your book £7.99 I think from memory on Amazon, you get to keep 70% of proceeds (minus cost of printing I presume), is this correct and if so what profit might you realistically make on a book costing £7.99 from Amazon? I want to donate some of the proceeds to charity but I don't know what figures I'm playing with. Anyone?

From memory, pricing your book at £2.99-£9.99 on Amazon gets you 70% after tax and download costs (anything above or below that and you only get 35%).

The exact amount you receive also depends on file size, because that affects download costs. When you’re pricing your book there’s a table that tells you what you’ll receive for each unit sold by country.

Thanks vb.

@themental

Thank you for your tips. I need to research my genre more but I'll be honest, I don't know what I should look for.

I don't know how to find "free best sellers" and how I can tell if it's a first book/new author? I also do a lot of browsing on my mobile and I know some of Amazon's features are not on the mobile version.

What would be your basics 101 Amazon genre research entail?

Can I ask a question please? I want to self publish via Amazon. But I was also thinking of acquiring my own ISBN to maybe sell in one or two local bookshops if they'll take my book. I'm getting a bit confused - I believe Amazon provides a barcode but how would this work with my own ISBN and can I use my own ISBN if publishing via Amazon?

I know this is an old thread but I'd be interested in how everyone is getting on as I'm currently working on a YA fiction novel that I plan to self publish but feel completely out of my depth (I'm a writer by trade but niche magazine not fiction).