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And The Hand Finally Closes Around Our Throat

20K views 220 replies 54 participants last post by  Corvid 
#1 ·
I noticed something odd about the release of my most recent book Bloodwing. So I went to investigate. If you'll recall my current plan relies on rapid releases, because that's the supposed key to wealth and riches on Jeff's yellow brick road of opportunity and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. Well, my plan lasted a total of sixteen days. In that time I published about 57,000 words of new fiction. Fortunately I was smart enough to hold on to my rights. I don't trust anyone anymore and I'm about to explain why.

Here's my first book, The Praetorian Imperative, published July 20th, on the 51st anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B08DDFXT6R&ref=nb_sb_noss

I use this URL for a very specific purpose. This is the URL we normally use to check and see if our books are in the right categories. Over there on the left are the dropdowns for each store. Here's the link for Bloodwing

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B08F6MQ473&ref=nb_sb_noss

Now then, when you compare these two pages, you will rapidly discover a problem. (I did this logged out to prevent any shenanigans). When you examine the drop down for "Kindle Store" you'll find that the second book appears in various browse categories. Meanwhile the first book (which has identical keywords) appears in none.

Funny how this automated system can produce two totally different sets of results for two books (with identical metadata that are even in the same SERIES) that are right next to each other in my bibliography, isn't it? If my book isn't in any browse categories, then it won't get a sales rank, now will it?

You'll then find the second book (published three days ago) is absent from either new releases list, while the first book (published sixteen days ago) is on page nine of the 30-day list.

This isn't the first time I've discovered this. During my last investigation, it turned out books wouldn't appear on the new releases list until they've had at least one sale and have a sales rank. This, of course, creates the old "keep the poor people in their place" paradox: you can't be on the list until your book sells, your book won't sell because it's not on the list.

If you will go back and re-examine the links in the URL for the second book Bloodwing, you'll see that the page insists it also appears on the 30-day and 90-day lists. Except it doesn't, despite the fact it was published 72 hours ago. At least it doesn't appear before its series mate, which went live sixteen days ago. I took the liberty of looking up the "hot 100 new releases" lists in all SEVEN browse categories. Only the first book appeared at #70 on the list for two-hour reads. Neither book appeared anywhere else.

This is the 30-day military science fiction new releases list:

https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-text&bbn=158591011&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cn%3A668010011%2Cn%3A158591011%2Cn%3A6157856011%2Cp_n_date%3A1249100011&dc&fst=as%3Aoff&qid=1596653602&rnid=158591011&ref=sr_nr_n_16

The #4 book on the list is called Direct Fire. Must be one hell of a book too. 55 5-star ratings. Top 1000 in the store. Only problem is it was published 15 days ago. The book right after it Forgotten Empire, in the number five slot, was published 27 days ago.

Both are in Kindle Unlimited too but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (God knows nobody on this site is bashful) but this accounts for the very last avenue any author had on Amazon for organic visibility, absent some wild-ass random search result. If there is no organic visibility on Amazon, then it makes no difference at all how fast books are released, which means no matter what an author does, or how hard they work, they will get no sales on Amazon unless they bring their own readers. Amazon is not going to provide you with even one opportunity to put your book somewhere it might be seen unless you drop some cash on the table, even if you write two books a month.

In other words, you can't just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Getting favored treatment is mandatory. You cannot earn it. You must be chosen.

The other thing we can conclude from all of this is there are criteria for appearing on the "new releases" list that have nothing to do with whether your book is a new release. Actual new releases are locked out until those criteria are met (we have no official word on what those are) while the clock runs. Authors are left to guess, and what better use of an author's time than to speculate and experiment with "solve a puzzle, win a prize" on a site they don't control? It reminds me of people who believed there was such a thing as SEO while they fretted day and night trying to untangle the mixed signals they got from Google's search results. Then once they figured out how to get their sites visible, Google changed the rules and locked them all out again. These people were invited to believe that deplatforming is new. It isn't. De-platforming is something these sites have been perfecting ever since they put their plans in motion to centralize control and lock the people who built the Internet out. Yes, I sound like Jerry Maguire. You'll recall Jerry Maguire won.

Now I've sent an e-mail to KDP to inquire about this, and I'm sure I will get a very polite non-response. The bottom line here is that publishing a book and getting it in front of a buying audience has become a video game. It's us against Amazon, with our interlocutor doing everything in its trillion-dollar power to keep our books from getting to readers. Amazon wants exclusive rights. They want control over our pricing. They want to slap a $0.00 price on our book and whore it out for pennies while we send hundreds and thousands of fresh new customers to their site night and day. What do we get in exchange for all this? Practically nothing. Amazon takes what they like and then sits on our money for two months.

I'm not an elite. I'm not entitled to visibility or the privileges of being chosen. Neither of my books have sold at all, at least on Amazon. Did Amazon notify my "followers" (lol) I had two new books out? Apparently not. If you go to my book's pages you'll find Amazon isn't advertising anything on those pages. They're completely bare. See if you can guess why? Why would you advertise on a page where you know there will never be any traffic?

BY THE WAY:

I still have the stats from the last time I was stupid enough to spend money on AMS ads. I know exactly how many people visited the Amazon page for Dawnsong: The Last Skyblade over a four month period. You would be shocked to know how few people actually showed up on a site with millions and billions of customers.

I also now know with certainty why my LitRPG, non-fiction, romance and fantasy books didn't sell. Amazon just turned them off because I'm a military science fiction author. The robot doesn't understand anything else, so those hundreds of thousands of words I've written in other genres? Eh, toss 'em. The robot doesn't care about your hard work. All that matters is what number is in the database column labeled "morlock author type."

Amazon has decided that I shouldn't have a writing career. They have decided they are not interested in selling my books (unless I'm innovative enough to just hand them 30% of my gross in exchange for nothing) I was kicked out of a promising technology career in my mid-30s. I was kicked out and left to the streets when my uncle and felon grandmother stole my mother's house from me. Now I'm being kicked out of being an author after nine years of hard work. If I want a writing career, I'm going to have to build it myself, because when I try to work with others, I get lied to and cheated.

If you have a writing career in mind, and you are relying on Amazon, there are some things you should know: 1) You have a job 2) Your job is to send traffic to Amazon 3) You may receive an optional paycheck 4) You are subject to termination with or without cause 5) You work for a robot.

You are part of the new breed of corporate dream employee. You agree to occasional paychecks or no paychecks. You require no benefits or job security. You can be thrown out on the sidewalk on a whim. Your elite corporate paymaster controls the money and all your property. You will have a four-inch-wide leather strap tightly cinched around your neck before you are hauled up on the ever-accelerating treadmill to run for your life. When you collapse from exhaustion or die you'll be thrown in the trash to make room for the next slave.

I've written for Amazon for nine years and sold thousands of books. I still can't afford to go to the dentist.

Now go to this page:

https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/

See right there under the video where it says "reach millions of readers on Amazon?" (This page hasn't changed at all since I signed up for KDP in 2011)

What they fail to mention is you are responsible for the millions of readers.

Amazon isn't getting another minute of my time.
 
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#127 ·
This is not directed at the OP, but more generally speaking.

I've seen a number of threads like this since around 2018. (I posted one myself a few days ago, although the tone was different.)

Even the "big name" indies say that things are getting harder. Mark Dawson spent $500K in advertising last year.

What happened? Between 2009 and 2012, there was a state of "irrational exuberance" in indie publishing. More books, and more books, and more books was what the gurus all preached.

But what about more readers? At first, indie publishing probably did bring in new readers. After all, the trad publishers weren't putting out many reverse harem romances, and not nearly enough space marine novels.

But then reverse harem and space marine novels were coming out at the rate of dozens, even hundreds, of new titles per day. (Joanna Penn revealed a few years ago that some author collectives now publish a new book every single day.)

Economically, it's unsustainable for large numbers of authors. We've reached a point where the rate of new material being published far exceeds the rate of new readers coming on board.

The simple fact of the matter is: Most indie authors aren't going to make it, in the sense of having a "real income" from writing fiction.
Many will continue to enjoy a handful of appreciative reviews. Others will earn nice 4-figure second incomes. But $50K~$100K per year? Maybe not.

This means, in effect, that things are going "back to normal"--only the new normal is different, of course.

This will affect behavior. I would guess that whereas in 2011 a newbie coming to a venue like KBoards saw encouragement, now they see caution.

I also look for more people to quit over the next few years. Not quit as in "unpublish everything from Amazon", but quit as in, "no longer assume that I can easily make this into a viable full-time income." There will be a lot more writers who are simply hobbyists publishing a novel here and there.

Fiction writing was always a perilous career choice. (That's why they used to say, "Don't quit your day job.")

It's understandable that people want to blame someone: Amazon, Mark Dawson, whoever. But at the end of the day, this is a classic supply-exceeds-demand situation.

ShayneRutherford said:
What about all the negative reviews? Are they real?

I don't want to discourage anyone until they quit. I don't want to discourage people at all. That's the problem. I think a lot of your comments are probably very discouraging to new writers, which is why I won't let them stand unchallenged.

And I already told you, I'm not wasting my time on a crit of your chapter. Last time, when you were lamenting that no one was buying your middle grade stuff I read part of your Look Inside and offered you some crit on it that I thought might be helpful to you. And I was immediately rebuffed and told I was wrong. So, I tried to help you, and you didn't want that help, so now my comments are for the other people reading this thread.
 
#128 ·
Economically, it's unsustainable for large numbers of authors. We've reached a point where the rate of new material being published far exceeds the rate of new readers coming on board.
Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom is more tropes, tighter adherence to market, covers that look the same, ads that look the same and woe unto you if you deviate too far from the orthodoxy, because that could lead to a nice sunny de-platforming.

Give you a perfect example. I have a series of books called "You Lead the Adventure." They are distantly similar to Choose Your Own Adventure books, except updated for the digital age. There are certain platforms I flat out can't publish them on. Can't risk it. Too dangerous. If a tap sends a reader from the right page to the wrong page or too far into the book, well, you know what happens next.

There's tremendous potential there. Could even bring in a new reader or three. But you're not allowed to experiment because there's a nuclear warhead duct-taped to your crotch.

The whole "write to market" thing simply drains all the joy out of this business. Nobody's having any fun because we all have to write the same book over and over again while the readers have to wade through a tsunami of crap every day to find something worth reading, only to discover it's more of the same.

I'll even bring up Kboards' favorite subject: children's books. And I'm just going to say it because frankly, I'm goshdarnn sick and tired of having a knife to my throat: Amazon doesn't give a damn about children's literacy for the same reason YouTube doesn't. They've all been threatened within an inch of their lives by Disney the government over COPPA. If you make any attempt to sell something that kids might like, a four foot eight accountant shows up with a letter threatening you with eternal financial hellfire under the Thou Shalt Not Compete With Disney Act.

The head of the FTC actually threatened (with an American flag behind him, no less) creators on YouTube with fines of up to $42,530 if it turned out their video wasn't to the government's liking. So that about wrapped it up for videos kids might like. Thousands of channels went dark. Once again, children were disinvited from the Internet, and only what, 2-3 years after the last toy store was bulldozed? Amazon has a whole section of their store ostensibly dedicated to children's entertainment. Are indies allowed? Of course not.

Disney Plus launched a few weeks later, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

So comics, picture books, game books, MG, YA, or anything potentially innovative is off the table before we even pick up a pencil. And that's [bullcrap]. Further, it's part of the reason we can't get any traction. There's an entire universe of books we can't even think about writing because we're trapped in these tiny [expletive]ing cages in a lightless room and forced to write the same five books over and over again.

Nobody writes a goshdarnn thing now without thinking "am I going to get banned? Am I going to get demonetized? Am I gonna get canceled? Will Google like it? Will I get any traffic? What if I say a bad word? Oh noes, what if someone thinks I'm no good??"

Is it possible readers are bored out of their minds? Oh look, another wisecracking demon with glowing hands--YAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN--unsubscribed

Nobody wants to be here if it isn't fun, and I'm sorry, if every time I type three words I have to erase two I'm not going to inspire anything in my audience but somnolence.

(Someone at dictionary.com is going to be rather confused tomorrow morning)
 
#129 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
Yes. I remember that critique well. You zeroed in on the personality of my main character. You said nothing about the quality of the writing
Yes. Because writing is all about the characters. Writing a book that people want to read is about creating characters that people want to spend time with. Because if they don't like the characters, who's going to want to spend several hours going on an adventure with them?

Shane Lochlann Black said:
You said nothing about the quality of the writing. You said nothing about voice or craft or anything that might qualify as literary critique. You focused instead on Jessica, because she's happy and optimistic and bubbly and we just can't HAVE that in 2020, now can we? "Uhh, she sounds too young. Uhh, she sounds like she's mentally handicapped. Uhh, she doesn't act her age." Blah blah.
I wasn't offering you a literary critique. I was offering you the opinion of a reader, who might have been interested in reading your books. Because despite what you seem to think, I actually really like reading about powerful female characters. I focused on Jessica because she's the first character that we meet, and because she's the reader's way into the story. And you are putting words in my mouth. I said she sounded twelve instead of the 16 she's supposed to be. I never said she sounded mentally handicapped.

There's nothing wrong with a character who is optimistic or happy. I'm sure middle grade readers would happily read about a protagonist like that. But girls of middle-grade reading age also want to read up, about protagonists who are older than they are. So the character needs to act her age.

Shane Lochlann Black said:
So you and numerous others hereabouts pounced on Jessica because she isn't a soulless ghoul. You couldn't find anything wrong with the writing so you took a swipe at what you could and you actually expected me to abandon my main character. There's no writer alive who would do that, but you knew that too. All you wanted was a fait accompli. "Oh, you're not going to drown your main character in a sink? Well you just won't accept criticism, then."
Maybe this conversation would go better if you stopped trying to have both sides of it. I wasn't trying to find something wrong with the writing. I was trying to find a reason why your potential readers might not buy the books. And since your readership for those books is 10 - 14 year old girls, the quality of the writing is probably not going to be the reason they're not buying, so looking at that would be a waste of time.

Also, I never said you should abandon your main character. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is kind of a waste. But if her character is preventing readers from getting into the story, you could always revisit her dialogue?

Shane Lochlann Black said:
That's why you're avoiding the subject now.
No. I'm not critiquing your chapter because doing a good critique requires effort, and I can't be bothered putting in effort to something that you're just going to ignore.

Shane Lochlann Black said:
Truth is you can't find anything substantive about my writing to criticize, so you're dancing around the subject or bringing up other books where you think you had some kind of advantage.
Creating characters that readers want to spend time with is substantive. It's extremely important. It's one of the most important aspects of storytelling. People will forgive a bit of clunky prose, or some missing punctuation, but they won't spend hours with a character that they don't like. For that matter, something like half the people in the US read at a fifth-grade reading level or lower, so most of them won't even notice that the punctuation is missing.

I don't even know what that last part means. The only advantage I have in discussing it is that I actually read some of it, and can therefore speak about what I read. And that was the book that I offered you critique on before. It doesn't really make sense to talk about a book that I haven't read any of, does it?
 
#130 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
Agreed. I'm sure you will also agree those flaws don't add up to "talentless, bad writer that readers avoid."

A) If the assertion is "Shane's books are flawed and could be improved," I'm in full agreement.

B) If the assertion is alternately "Shane's books demonstrate a lack of talent and craft, and readers are likely to avoid his books as a result" I'm afraid that isn't supported by the facts.
I made no statement about your talent, that's of course up to the book-reading masses to decide, not just another struggling Indie author such as myself. I would say, however, that part "A" being attended to is probably the difference between greater success and just moderate sales.
 
#131 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
Nobody writes a goshdarnn thing now without thinking "am I going to get banned? Am I going to get demonetized? Am I gonna get canceled? Will Google like it? Will I get any traffic? What if I say a bad word? Oh noes, what if someone thinks I'm no good!"
Untrue :D But I like my day job, so that helps. It's a lot easier writing whatever the heck I want to write if I don't need to do it. I get the point though, and I know that you're talking about writing as a business, but I'm just saying, it's not always a wasteland of same thing after same thing after same thing. Though you might have to look under a few rocks to find the other stuff.
 
#132 ·
Because if they don't like the characters, who's going to want to spend several hours going on an adventure with them?
That's a very good question. Now be careful, Shayne. I'm going to ask you a pivotal question:

Leaving aside your personal opinions about how a 16 year old girl should act and speak, and keeping in mind I'm capable of writing over a million words of commercial-quality fiction in less than four years, why do you think I wrote Jessica the way I did? Is it because of my complete lack of talent or do you suppose I might have planned ahead?

I should point out I created Jessica Halloran when Bill Clinton was president.
 
#133 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
That's a very good question. Now be careful, Shayne. I'm going to ask you a pivotal question:

Leaving aside your personal opinions about how a 16 year old girl should act and speak, and keeping in mind I'm capable of writing over a million words of commercial-quality fiction in less than four years, why do you think I wrote Jessica the way I did? Is it because of my complete lack of talent or do you suppose I might have planned ahead?
I think it's because you haven't spent much time with a lot of teenage kids and listened to how they actually talk. And I never said it was a lack of talent. I suspect you planned to have her grow up and become more mature as the book, and the series, went along. But she doesn't have to sound childish in order to grow as a person. And all the planning in the world won't matter if no one will stick with the books long enough to get to the end.

And I mean, that's fine. Let's leave aside my personal opinion of how 16-year old girls actually speak. Despite the fact that I, you know, was a 16 year old girl at one point. And despite the fact that I spent 16 years working as a caretaker in the public school system, where I had many, many opportunities to hear the kids talk in the halls after school.
 
#134 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
Rapid release has zero effect on sales. If all you do is write fast and publish fast you will end up with a long list of invisible books. I have documented proof directly from Amazon.
Importantly, for your definition of rapid release.

Most people don't define it the way you do as "only organic sales, zero advertising allowed" and so come to a different conclusion.

It's entirely possible you're right as of today when using your definition, but I think what's more important to discuss is what most people mean when they discuss Rapid Release as a tactic, and what it achieves vs the alternative.

Let's say Author A can write a book every 90 days, or 4 books in a series in a year.

The normal method would be to release books at the end of March, June, Sept, and Dec. Book 1 in the series will be advertised/promoted upon each book release. So your ad budget would be 1/4 of your budget each quarter.

Rapid Release as a tactic says that Book 1 should not be released at the end of March. Book 1 and 2 should be held until Book 3 is ready at the end of Sept. Then all 3 will be released rapidly and Book 4 will come along just in time as the rapid release is winding down. The theory is that by compressing this release schedule, the ads/promotion on Book 1 has a longer readthrough tail out of the gate and you have more to spend at once (3/4th of your budget), thus generating more profit per click, and driving the books higher up Amazon's charts where their discoverability engine will kick in and start driving more free (intentionally not using "organic" here) traffic to your book.

This is what I've heard authors say works in regards to Rapid Release. Having Book 1 and 2 on sale longer, even with promo, does not outweigh the synergy of having multiple books in a series all available in very short order. So hold those book back until you can use your ad budget most effectively. I've not seen anyone reputable except you say that Rapid Release is an alternative to advertising/promo in the last few years.

So it seems like a straw man argument, doomed to prove you right, not disprove Rapid Release as people know it, and I recall some said so when you explained your idea in the first place.
 
#135 ·
And all the planning in the world won't matter if no one will stick with the books long enough to get to the end.
Again with the "nobody will read your book" thing. You're one of the people leading the opposition to my "generalizing," and then based on exactly nothing but your personal opinion, you assert nobody will read to the end of my book. And you made this snap judgment based on about 700 words of the prologue, after which you pronounced a 90,000-word novel a failure and concluded Jessica sounds "childish."

The hypocrisy could split atoms.

I'll tell you what nobody wants. Nobody wants to read a story about teenagers and how they really speak. All that would do for me would be to inspire an Olympic-caliber swan dive off the Santa Monica bridge. Jessica is a fictional character. Her personality is exaggerated because that's how show business works. She's bubbly and excitable because that's who she is. And she's not going to change. Not for a minute. Not for a second. She is not going to be turned into a grimdark psychopath. She's not going to be turned into a world-weary cynical hate machine. She's not going to put on two pounds of eyeliner and sit in the corner cutting herself.

If that's what you're looking for you're in the wrong shop. I was being CREATIVE when I wrote Jessica. She is not written to market. She is not like other teenage girls. She is unusual and remarkable and she has something to say that might be a little different than what you're used to. She's unique. She sounds different. She acts different. Because she IS different.

I think we have now put to rest the topic of my writing skill.
 
#136 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
Again with the "nobody will read your book" thing. You're one of the people leading the opposition to my "generalizing," and then based on exactly nothing but your personal opinion, you assert nobody will read to the end of my book. And you made this snap judgment based on about 700 words of the prologue, after which you pronounced a 90,000-word novel a failure and concluded Jessica sounds "childish."

The hypocrisy could split atoms.

I'll tell you what nobody wants. Nobody wants to read a story about teenagers and how they really speak. All that would do for me would be to inspire an Olympic-caliber swan dive off the Santa Monica bridge. Jessica is a fictional character. Her personality is exaggerated because that's how show business works. She's bubbly and excitable because that's who she is. And she's not going to change. She is not going to be turned into a grimdark psychopath. She's not going to be turned into a world-weary cynical hate machine. She's not going to put on two pounds of eyeliner and sit in the corner cutting herself.

If that's what you're looking for you're in the wrong shop.
Please stop putting words in my mouth. I'm not asserting that no one will read to the end of your book because of my personal opinion of it. I'm assuming no one will read to the end of your series because you're always on here complaining about the sad state of indie publishing and how your books aren't selling. That's why I'm assuming people won't read your books. That's why I've always assumed that. Because you say that you can't sell them. I only went to look at one of them because I thought maybe I could see something that might be useful to you. But I assumed they weren't selling long before I ever looked at any of them, and I would have assumed that if I'd never looked at any of them. Because that's what you always say.
 
#139 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
Sales are not the problem. Visibility is the problem.
Let's be clear. You complain about lack of visibility but say your sales are fine? Why this post then? Why all of your posts bemoaning Amazon and your current state in publishing?

Your mistake is comparing your rapid release strategy to a proven strategy. Your problem is trying to isolate out one factor in visibility and thinking you can definitively clarify what Amazon is doing. Others I trust more than you have made similar attempts and admit it cannot be easily codified.

Rapid release, for those lurking, has many benefits. If you're a new author, it creates momentum and, yes, visibility when you begin to release with regularity. It proves to readers you will continue to publish as many readers don't buy unless there are more than one book in series. Some wait for the completed series to buy. It allows you to economically advertise, as you can promote book 1 along with all subsequent books. If you gain traction, you'll move up in the rankings and regardless of what Shane would argue, that does amount to additional visibility and sales.

For all his grumbling about sameness of covers and of content, you are the publisher. You decide how you run your business. If it fails because you're not meeting general expectations, then blaming your vendor is probably not the best use of time. Readers reach for familiarity, which is why covers have trends. Once you pull them in, you can change it up but you have to earn that right. If you can create a niche, then you're even better off, but that's incredibly rare.

It can be done in the current market, despite the volume of product. In 2019 I launched a pen name in a popular genre, spent less than $100 on AMS and Bookbub ads, and within 4 months had that author as one of the KU all stars. My strategy? Monthly releases of novel length work. A genre that sold, but I had my own unique spin on it. Covers that fit the genre, not my own personal style (because I wanted to sell the book, not get caught up in thinking I knew what would sell). Good books that brought readers back.

Looking at one factor in isolation is a mistake. All of these things are interrelated. That's the hard truth Shane refuses to acknowledge and wants to keep coming back to how great his writing is.

If you're going to push that narrative, a 3.7 star average out of 41 reviews (of the first book I searched) suggests you have some work to do. Reviews are an imperfect means of evaluating quality, but they are one way readers determine whether they'll take a chance on you, and regardless of the advice to ignore reviews, there are nuggets to learn from every review, good or bad. It's all about improving. I look at all my reviews (never respond!) and search for trends. If there are trends, that's something to work on or focus more on if my readers love something I'm doing. Unfortunately, Shane, I don't get the sense you are interested in improving. This is a business. You'd rather claim expertise you clearly have not mastered and refuse to listen to those who have successfully done it and are willingly offering you advice. Many of us want other authors to succeed, and we want to offer advice, because someone offered it to us once upon a time.

TLDR: New authors - ignore Shane. There are other more experienced publishers who can offer you actionable advice.
 
#140 ·
Patrick1980 said:
Economically, it's unsustainable for large numbers of authors. We've reached a point where the rate of new material being published far exceeds the rate of new readers coming on board.

The simple fact of the matter is: Most indie authors aren't going to make it, in the sense of having a "real income" from writing fiction.
Many will continue to enjoy a handful of appreciative reviews. Others will earn nice 4-figure second incomes. But $50K~$100K per year? Maybe not.

This means, in effect, that things are going "back to normal"--only the new normal is different, of course.

This will affect behavior. I would guess that whereas in 2011 a newbie coming to a venue like KBoards saw encouragement, now they see caution.

I also look for more people to quit over the next few years. Not quit as in "unpublish everything from Amazon", but quit as in, "no longer assume that I can easily make this into a viable full-time income." There will be a lot more writers who are simply hobbyists publishing a novel here and there.

Fiction writing was always a perilous career choice. (That's why they used to say, "Don't quit your day job.")

It's understandable that people want to blame someone: Amazon, Mark Dawson, whoever. But at the end of the day, this is a classic supply-exceeds-demand situation.
I agree with this assessment. There is not only a massive supply of content, but a massive supply of content providers adding to that content daily. There is always an issue of supply and demand, and it affects all of us to a certain extent -- some more than others, obviously.

Although some in the past have suggested from time to time on KB that there are unlimited readers out there, I don't agree.

People only have so much time for reading, and many have limited budgets, even if they have the spare time. KU may have gamed that a little bit (unlimited content for $10 a month) but when people are counting their pennies, even that could change, depending on the state of the overall economy.
 
#141 ·
You complain about lack of visibility but say your sales are fine?
That is correct. If my books are visible, they sell just fine. Like most other authors I suspect.

Why all of your posts bemoaning Amazon
Nobody's bemoaning Amazon. I simply pointed out it's not a new releases list, and Amazon agreed.

In 2019 I launched a pen name in a popular genre, spent less than $100 on AMS and Bookbub ads, and within 4 months had that author as one of the KU all stars.
Good for you. Why do you hide your books?
 
#142 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
Oh I don't have to pretend. I know exactly how many visits my book pages get on Amazon and I know exactly how many visits they get on my site. See if you can guess which has more? I'll give you a hint: it's not Amazon.
Really? You know exactly how many readers visit your Amazon pages? That's something I'd really like to know.

But of course, that's impossible, so I don't know. Nor do you. You don't have the slightest idea how many people visit your Amazon pages. To make a statement like that is misleading at best. We don't even know how many Amazon followers we have, let alone how many visits an Amazon page gets.

My guess is, you're attributing every single visit to one of your Zon pages to an affiliate link click. Sorry, that's not how many visit it. Your books are in your sig line. If I click one, KBoards would know, because they use affiliate links also. But there is zero possibility that you would.
 
#143 ·
Shane Lochlann Black said:
Men are told all their lives what women want. Women want a "nice guy." So these men play the dating game based on the rules as stated by society and end up alone in their 60s wondering what they did wrong. They were playing one game while all of society was playing a different game.
This is from a couple of pages back but I just wanted to say: Yikes.
 
#144 ·
The thing is, new people do this all the time. When I broke in about three years ago, I heard the same stuff that I'm hearing now. It was too hard, too crowded, too everything. And yeah, it is hard and crowded and everything. It's probably harder and more crowded than it was three years ago, but new people are doing this every day and new people are successful at it every day. I've done rapid release and I can tell you that (at least for me) it makes all the difference in the world. I can't tell you specifics about algos or exactly why it works, but I can tell you that-if I release books written to market with good covers and at novel sized length at a quick pace, my bank account looks a lot better than if I don't.

I know the OP seems to think that a thread like this might save a potential writer a lot of heartbreak and wasted time (I'm paraphrasing), but if I'd have seen this exact thread three years ago, I might have closed the computer and never tried to self pub my novel, and that would have changed my life for the worse. The last three years have seen me become independent and fulfilled in a way that wouldn't have been possible if I didn't do this. So, I just want to throw that out there too. This job is hard, and it requires more dedication and frankly more work than a regular 9-5. To say otherwise would be to lie. But to say you definitively know that something wont work because it didn't work for you and because you seem to have a bit of information from Amazon that I'm not sure you understand correctly (to be completely honest, the fact that you've been on Amazon as long as you have and didn't know that the New Release list was also a sales ranking list is a bit curious) is also less than accurate.
 
#145 ·
Wunder said:
I know the OP seems to think that a thread like this might save a potential writer a lot of heartbreak and wasted time (I'm paraphrasing), but if I'd have seen this exact thread three years ago, I might have closed the computer and never tried to self pub my novel, and that would have changed my life for the worse. The last three years have seen me become independent and fulfilled in a way that wouldn't have been possible if I didn't do this. So, I just want to throw that out there too. This job is hard, and it requires more dedication and frankly more work than a regular 9-5. To say otherwise would be to lie. But to say you definitively know that something wont work because it didn't work for you and because you seem to have a bit of information from Amazon that I'm not sure you understand correctly (to be completely honest, the fact that you've been on Amazon as long as you have and didn't know that the New Release list was also a sales ranking list is a bit curious) is also less than accurate.
And this is why I think challenging these statements is so important. ^^^
 
#146 ·
Wunder said:
The thing is, new people do this all the time. When I broke in about three years ago, I heard the same stuff that I'm hearing now. It was too hard, too crowded, too everything. And yeah, it is hard and crowded and everything. It's probably harder and more crowded than it was three years ago, but new people are doing this every day and new people are successful at it every day. I've done rapid release and I can tell you that (at least for me) it makes all the difference in the world. I can't tell you specifics about algos or exactly why it works, but I can tell you that-if I release books written to market with good covers and at novel sized length at a quick pace, my bank account looks a lot better than if I don't.

I know the OP seems to think that a thread like this might save a potential writer a lot of heartbreak and wasted time (I'm paraphrasing), but if I'd have seen this exact thread three years ago, I might have closed the computer and never tried to self pub my novel, and that would have changed my life for the worse. The last three years have seen me become independent and fulfilled in a way that wouldn't have been possible if I didn't do this. So, I just want to throw that out there too. This job is hard, and it requires more dedication and frankly more work than a regular 9-5. To say otherwise would be to lie. But to say you definitively know that something wont work because it didn't work for you and because you seem to have a bit of information from Amazon that I'm not sure you understand correctly (to be completely honest, the fact that you've been on Amazon as long as you have and didn't know that the New Release list was also a sales ranking list is a bit curious) is also less than accurate.
Same. (I'd quote both responses above, but I don't know how to do that.) I published 16 months before the OP. I too nearly didn't publish at all, because I read similar things to his remarks on another board and momentarily despaired and assumed it was hopeless. Then I thought, "What the heck. May as well try. I've got these books," and published anyway.

I did publish three books at once, sort of like rapid release in that the idea is not to make the reader wait (and forget about you, and have you lose whatever visibility you have) for the subsequent books. It worked really well and solidified my audience, so I can see why rapid release works (besides working with the Amazon algorithms).

It's so, so hard to know whether this business can work for you, partly because a lot of it is so nebulous. To have longterm success without having to be on the Churn Train, you need to write something that hits your reader's sweet spot (which means capturing some segment of your genre, since most genres aren't monolithic), while also having something unique to offer, and you ALSO need to have your cover, blurb, and title reflect that sweet spot. And then, of course, the book has to deliver well enough to get them to buy the next one.

It's hookiness, mostly, and knowing your audience. It helps, as Crystal has said elsewhere, if you ARE your audience, but people have "made it" without that. You have to either "get" this stuff intuitively, though, or learn it by a lot of observation and analysis and trial and error, or some combo of all that.

It's not easy, but it can work, and just because it doesn't work at first, you can still learn and have it work better for you. But you can't close your eyes and ears to feedback from the market, from your peers, from your readers and insist on doing things the way that you already know DOESN'T work.

I'm posting that for the same reason as the poster above says--it's important to challenge the mantra that "It's impossible." It's not. It happens. But the only way to know whether you are capable of writing books lots of people will pay money to read is to learn from your mistakes.

If the people who ARE reading your books are super enthusiastic, you'll probably (A) grow your readership, and (B) know that purchasing or sweat-laboring your way to more visibility is likely to pay off. If the people who are reading AREN'T super enthusiastic, then maybe work on your product some more. Maybe it's something pretty simple to fix. If lots of readers say the books are confusing, that they jump around? That's an easy fix for a good writer, and you probably just amped up enjoyment a fair amount.

(Edited to add bold.)
 
#147 ·
Authors coming together and challenging perceptions is one of the things that makes this forum valuable, but I suspect anyone who stumbled onto a thread of Shane's and got derailed by his opinions didn't have it in them to begin with.

I'm in the demo some think need protecting. I've taken years to prepare to publish. I wrote a series that won't see the light of day, because it sucked. I refined my process and now I'm working on a series I plan to rapid release and advertise. I know what I think doesn't count for much because I haven't interacted until now, but I don't think anyone or anyone's perspective should be shunned from the board; challenged, yes, but treated as a danger, no.
 
#148 ·
I had it (talent, success, whatever) in me, and all the discouraging words nearly derailed me. Many excellent writers lack self confidence. Comes from being introverted and all that. One of the reasons I do not promote much is that until the book is out there, I tend to think that everybody will hate it. And I do not think I am alone.

People are different. Nobody is arguing that the OP should have his posts deleted. People are saying such naysaying can be dangerous, and challenging the OP’s assertions. Fair play, I would say.
 
#150 ·
Folks, you may challenge my assertions all you like, but you're not going to put words in my mouth. I posted this thread to protect new authors from engaging in pointless and potentially dangerous work habits. There is nothing that will destroy someone's career more thoroughly than burnout.

You've all done a fine job of defending everything but the rapid release model I have described here and elsewhere, and despite all the noise, not one of you has demonstrated any evidence at all that writing and publishing books on an unusually fast schedule has any effect on their visibility without also engaging in traditional marketing methods.

If what I have written here discourages new authors from starting their careers, I have no control over that. Their misinterpretation of my message isn't my problem. The authors who are warned away from burning themselves out trying to exploit a marketing gimmick that doesn't work are the audience here, and I will continue to defend them whether you like it or not.

We are now up to six pages and more than 7000 views, and so far not ONE person has cited a shred of evidence that the rapid release gimmick I described creates any additional visibility for books. Believe whatever you like, but that fact alone is devastating.

Let's keep our eye on the ball here.

P.S. For those of you frantically bunching your underwear about my remarks regarding the dating market, here's 327 million Google results.
 
#151 ·
Bite the Dusty said:
Authors coming together and challenging perceptions is one of the things that makes this forum valuable, but I suspect anyone who stumbled onto a thread of Shane's and got derailed by his opinions didn't have it in them to begin with.

I'm in the demo some think need protecting. I've taken years to prepare to publish. I wrote a series that won't see the light of day, because it sucked. I refined my process and now I'm working on a series I plan to rapid release and advertise. I know what I think doesn't count for much because I haven't interacted until now, but I don't think anyone or anyone's perspective should be shunned from the board; challenged, yes, but treated as a danger, no.
The whole point of this thread (as said by the OP directly) is to point out the dangers of what they consider to be a destructive way of thinking. The OP has pointed to the idea of wasted time and people falling into extremely unhealthy work habits as a result of this line of thinking. In doing that, the OP treats that way of thinking as dangerous. Doing the same thing to the opposite way of thinking shouldn't be considered strange at this stage in the thread.

That being said, no one is trying to shun or silence anyone. We're simply engaging in a conversation. I'll also say that assuming someone who gets derailed by pages and pages of doom and gloom and misinformation contained in a thread on what is almost certainly the largest collective of self published authors anywhere 'doesn't have it in them' is dismissive at best.
 
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