It depends on your end goal. Are you hoping for more exposure or more income? Trying to do both at once usually works out poorly. Pick one focus and then aim everything you have at it. If you want more income, 99C at launch isn't the way to go because your bread & butter readers will jump at the discount. If you want more exposure, make it easy for them to share/ tell their friends about a great author w a great sale that day. Don't be afraid to prompt them.

I use a texting service. It's not a cost effective way of doing things, especially on 99c-$2.99 priced books. You have to set up a keyword which has its own fee and then you pay for each text sent. It also has an autoresponder and you pay for each response. I wouldn't recommend the company I use. I'd gotten them b/c their price for texting an image was cheaper than everyone else, but the pic shows as a link in the text. So if I were to send a release day text it would have had my text, pic link, & purchase link which screws with the response rate. I have text to keywords for my books (broken down by vendor), films, and workshops. If you are thoughtful about the setup, it will automatically sort lists for you. Again, that cost extra. Most companies nickel & dime you. On higher priced items like bundles & workshops it's worth it, imho. You use tracking/ analytics to see who clicked & bought what to track ROI.

I'm completely blanking on the cheaper company's name right now. Once you set up your keywords, it'll cost you to move them so choose wisely. Also, the rate on most plans skyrockets to include international. Some include Canada at no extra cost. Read the fine print. There's a lot of it.

There are many reasons to chose to create a series over a stand alone. Part of it revolves around scope and depth. You can go into more detail in a series and develop the characters more deeply. Series are easier to advertise (ROI is way higher), and series tend to earn more money.

 Select the number of books in your series carefully. There is a point of diminishing returns on a series and it varies by genre/ author. At some point a new series will bring in more readers than the sell through rate on an established series. Consider 2-3 book series. It allows for the author to have the series depth/ freedom while evading the point of diminishing returns. In a 2 book series, most ppl will want book 2. In a 3 book series, same thing--if they read books 1 & 2, it's only one more book. There's a psychological element at play that creates buying patterns.

Here's an exception: My most successful series is 23 books long. That's insane and I wouldn't outright recommend that to anyone, but when you have a series that's selling millions of copies and have fun expanding the world/ story, well, there's an exception to every rule. That's one of them.

The other anomaly is with novellas. They tend to do better with 5-10 books rather than 2-3. Half of my catalog is novellas. You're genre is already geared towards accepting novellas more so than others. Maybe consider releasing as serials and then do bind ups when the series is complete? Hugh Howey did that with several of his works. The sci fi market is a good place to be. Although I've made my biggest splash elsewhere, I've been watching it closely for years. Maybe 2017 will be the year I finally jump into scifi. Best of luck to you.

We know about the 30-day, 60-day, and 90-day cliffs. But is there also a cliff at the one-year mark?

I'm asking because one of my books, which has been ranked sub-5k since it was published, recently passed its first anniversary and sales have slowed. It's not a sharp dropoff, but it's noticeable, and for the first time its rank is moving towards 10k.

There's a good chance it's just a coincidence. But it would be interesting to know if there's a penalty for older books. Does anyone have some data they can throw in the ring? :)

From what I've seen, yes. It also becomes harder to gain momentum. It'll seem like the book has a rock on the cover and won't lift easily, even with a BB. 1 year was noticeable, 3 years was worse, and 5 was time to rebundle and relaunch as an omnibus or anniversary edition.

And a Texas flag! Or the shape of Texas. Or the shape of Texas with a Texas flag in it. Geez, I can't believe I overlooked the Texas element of this story. That's prime branding for you right there.

That's very good advice. Covers act like stop signs. They're not art and it doesn't matter if you even like them.

Right left, hair color aren't as important. If you need a hugely successful example - look at the cover for THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA movie/ playbill. The mask is of the wrong side of his face. They decided it looked better that way in the marketing pieces. Fans noticed and it's one of the things that they like knowing. It's like insider information. Die-hards will notice and eat it up. It's all in how it's presented. If it's intentional, then it's not a mistake.

If you write under a pen name that's okay. You don't have to tell me the pen name or prove that you're an author. If you put your place of employment as AUTHOR or WRITER I can tell enough to let you in. You can remove it again after access is granted. Once you're in the group, there's an intro thread to say what you write and all that good stuff.

Please make sure I can tell you're a writer by having WRITER or AUTHOR as your occupation, or a book cover on your banner.

Novel writing not exciting? Monty Python begs to differ

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogPZ5CY9KoM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogPZ5CY9KoM</a>

Here's the script form. Just be aware that there are more funny bits in the audio beyond where the script ends off.

Hahaha. That's what I thought when they first told me about it. I thought it was going to be a documentary like a bunch of other shows I've seen. Which are interesting, but lacking in excitement. This one nailed that part. I'll share more as soon as I can. The way they pulled everything together is really interesting.

While I've hit lists without ISBNs, it's been a while and it's been known to cause issues - like they missed a platform. It's a cheap investment and helps. If you want a list, I'd consider getting one.
Watch your week start date. Like CL said, it's not Tue-Mon and varies by list. NYT is different than USAT.
Yes, you have to be wide. They list which platforms they're counting. So does NYT.

News! While working things out for my Ferro family to get their own series, I found out about a new reality, competition based show about authors, and they asked me to be a judge. OMG it sounds like so amazing. Think American Idol, but for writers. Yeah, I'm a little bit excited about it. We filmed a segment in my office yesterday. Long story short, if all goes well, it will come to your TV in 2017!

I thought I'd post about it in here because there are so many writers looking for help with their career and trying to figure out how the big sellers did it. If this goes well, then you'll get to hear from tremendously successful authors, how they did it, and hear the advice given to the contestants. You can use all that info! Plus, some people will get to be the contestants. That's the one thing I craved early on--practical career advice from people who know the ropes. It was hard to find. Successful authors tend to move on and it's so hard to get started/ restarted. It can be discouraging and frustrating. This is cool because I'm a resource nerd and like to learn everything I possibly can, so something like this sounds amazing. It has so much potential, and the way it's being presented is entertaining too. I wish I could say more, but I can't yet. I thought you guys would like a heads up. More to come!

How important is it to have an active author website, and with that, how important is getting a mailing list started? I mean this in priority of importance in relation to all of the other marketing techniques that are used by authors to sell books. Thanks.

It's VERY important to have a central area where you can direct people to your book. Providing links to retailers and making it EASY TO PURCHASE are paramount while marketing.

The mailing list will be a slow build where it doesn't seem like it's worth it at first. I neglected mine early on and can tell you that it was a mistake. That list is your direct connection to readers. It's also the most economical with the highest ROI (return on investment). The sign up link should be on your site, on social media, in your emails with prompting to invite a friend, and in your books.

With your first book, you hit the social wall. Most people have a connection of roughly 200 other people via social media. The max lifetime number of units sold for your typical release is approx. 200 units. I think these two things go hand in hand. If you don't figure out how to break out beyond your current social structure, there's no way for word to spread about your book. I used Facebook to do this initially and allured people with a very public launch of a first book. It was terrifying. I know people showed up to see if I'd fall on my face. It's the 'train wreck' allure. Use whatever you can to break out past those first 200 units. In my opinion that is the biggest milestone an author can pass. It means the difference between success and failure. And those first 200 books are like pulling teeth where it is uncomfortable and awkward. You gotta keep smiling and march on.

A tip - Spend as little money as possible on creating your books. Make very strategic moves to push your brand. It doesn't happen overnight. I didn't have a regular following for a year or more. It's a lot of work. When you gain a reader, you want to do everything you can to hold onto them - which is why the website and mailing list is important. Retaining readers is just as important as getting them in the first place. Hope that helps. There's more marketing stuff over here if you're interested: http://hmward.com/blog/?s=marketing There are a bunch of free videos about marketing books I have up on YouTube too. Link is on the blog. I recorded a few for indie recon/ indie fringe as well. Those are longer, but packed full of marketing and sales info.

And a first website can be a wordpress template. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. Something is better than nothing. I'm making a basic site for my daughter right now. I'm using a wordpress template. She's in about the same spot you are, has a few books under her belt, but no list in place and no website. Those are the first two things I'm helping her address.