Yeah, so this is about a month late, but...

I finally got my first sequel out!

-drumroll-

May I present you with Epitaphs (Echoes #2)!



Echoes #1 was my debut novel, released at a point where I knew just about nothing about self-publishing and was totally stumbling around in the dark. Now, a little wiser as to the ways of the publishing world, I released Epitaphs with an actual battle (read: advertising) plan.

Firstly, I got my Echoes cover redone (which reminds me I need to update my forum signature) and created a new overall series cover style that I plan to follow through to all the subsequent series books.

Then, I did a really big promo push for Echoes directly after the release of Epitaphs -- if you subscribe to a number of different bargain book newsletters, you probably saw it multiple times -- and, as a result, I managed to hand off a little over 300 copies of Echoes in 2.5 weeks. A personal best for me. By a longshot.

I also had immediate sell-through of Epitaphs that added up to roughly 25 copies. I'm hoping to see more trickle in as some of those Echoes sales pay off.

As of now, my promo plans have died down, and Echoes is back to a $2.99 price point, with Epitaphs at $3.99. I'm planning to get out Encodings (Echoes #3) sometime around Thanksgiving or Christmas, at which point Echoes #1 will finally go permafree. 

So far, my sequel experience has been largely positive, thanks in no small part to you guys here at Kboards. You taught me all sorts of tricks, like mailing lists and giveaways and which ad sites are the best. If it wasn't for you guys, I probably would have fumbled the ball again like I did with Echoes originally.

If you guys have any thoughts about things to do between now and the release of Echoes #3 in a few months, I'd love to hear them. I'm always up for some more pointers.

So, against conventional wisdom (and my better judgment), I wrote a stand alone novel in between my series books (see: Solace in my signature). If this was a sequel, I'd be doing a big advertising push for the previous book(s), but since it's all by its lonesome, I can't really pull on any of my previous books to jumpstart any sales.

And obviously, I can't get any actual advertising until I have reviews (there are about 70 free copies floating around in the hands of some hopefully-soon-to-become-reviewers, so I might have enough reviews to get advertising by, like, next January.  )

So...what do I do with it? I'm not sure there's really much of anything I can do before I hit the 30 day cliff to get sales going. Should I just let it sit there and promo it around my sequels this year? Something like that? Or is there something special I should do with it? I know some people around here do indeed write stand alone novels, so there must be way some way to sell a few copies here and there. I didn't really expect this book to be a big earner, by any means, but I don't want it to sit in a forgotten dusty corner for the rest of its life.

-shrugs-

Should I bother with any substantial effort, you think, or should I let it rest for now? Use it to fill gaps between my sequels later in the year? That sort of thing?

Any tidbits of wisdom?

Thanks!

Hey guys,

It's that time. Yep, my second book is out!

As such, I thought it'd be helpful if I made one of those threads where I summarize how my book is doing at various points so that you all can figure out what helps and what doesn't.

On that note, here's my general release strategy for my second book, Othella.

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Retailer Availability

First off, I'm doing at least one cycle of KDP Select with Othella, for no other reason than I did NOT use Select for Echoes. I want to compare results. So, for the first 90 days, the ebook will only be available on Amazon. The paperback will be available throughout CS's expanded distribution network.

Othella is here on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Othella-Arcadian-Heights-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00L7DCTA8/

The B&N page for the paperback isn't up yet.

So that's where the book will be for the duration of my "NEW RELEASE" period.

Something I'm also doing differently than I did last time: Othella will be $0.99 until I finish all my promos -- so, for several weeks. While I'll make about NOTHING in terms of royalties, this intro price point should help me get the kind of exposure I'm going for. I'll worry about making millions when I have an actual backlist to work with. Until then, building readership is the goal.

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Reviews

I sent out 18 ARCs to general ARC requesters and another 21 to people who volunteered to be blog tour hosts (more on the blog tour in a minute).

So far, I've gotten 4 reviews on Amazon, all 5 stars.

Several others have told me they're reading, and a few are close to being finished and have promised reviews in the next few days.

My goal with the ARCs is to get 10 reviews by July 5th so that I can start submitting to the paid ad sites that have review minimums (that is, ENT, KBT, Book Sends, etc.)

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Ads

I've been submitting Othella to every free ad site I can find for the last couple of days. Although most of these sites probably won't yield many sales on their own, I feel that submitting to so many will help me at least garner more sales than I would without them. Obviously, though, I won't be able to keep track of all the free sites because a lot of them don't even tell you whether they're going to feature your book or not, but I think this tactic is useful regardless. Every sale counts.

As mentioned above, once I hit my review goal, I'm going to submit to the standard paid sites: ENT, KBT, Book Sends, etc. I'm also going to inform POI, but we all know how that goes. I might wait until I get one of my other ads running before I go to POI, as they might be more likely to pick it up if it's ranked higher.

If anyone has any other ad recommendations, please tell me! I'm willing to submit any reasonably priced ($30 or less) site that has good results and any free submit sites. (By the way, NO Bookbub at this time. I'm waiting on Bookbub until I have an actual backlist to work with. If I'm going to spend that much money, I want the results to be phenomenal.)

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Social Media

Othella is being given the "standard" social media treatment.

I have a Facebook party up and running: https://www.facebook.com/events/257083847810548/ -- which you are ALL invited to, by the way. Just click "Join" on the page. I'm going to have a few small giveaways during the party tomorrow, so if you like free stuff, stop by.

Other than FB, I've been spreading the word on G+, Pinterest, Twitter, and the like. I don't focus too much on social media though. Straight advertising on social media rarely has results, and I don't like to be spammy.

Interesting note, though -- I'm on Triberr, and a lot of my tribe members with fairly large followings tend to share my blog posts. So I'm hoping that the release day post that goes up on my blog tomorrow will get the crap shared out of it. We'll see. I'll report on the social media response over the next few days.

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Blog Tour

I set up my own blog tour for Othella. I originally had 21 volunteers to host the tour, but, like usual, several of them dropped out or just never replied to me. I'm now sitting at 15 hosts with posts scheduled between June 26th and July 18th. For the tour, I setup a giveaway for a paperback copy of Othella in order to help the tour hosts get more traffic.

I will let you all know how the tour goes as it progresses.

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And that is my release strategy for Othella. Comments? Questions? Helpful tips?

If I'm missing anything important, or you have things that have worked for you in the past that I'm not using, let me know!

(Also, before anyone asks: yes, I have a mailing list, but it's only got 16 subscribers so far. I'm working on it.)

Whew. So much work for one little book...

But that's the way it always is, yeah? 

Hey guys,

I just spent all freaking day proofreading my upcoming book (again), which culminated in me sending out my ARCs (YAY!), and as I sit here on my bed, bone tired, a question popped in my head: do you guys ever get tired of working on a book? Not tired of writing in general (although I suppose you could theoretically get some general writing fatigue) but of a specific book? Or at a specific stage in the process?

If so, what's your trigger? What's you limit? At what point do you just say "Screw it, I'm done!"?

For me, it's the proofreading stage. Drafting? Piece of cake. Revising? I can do that. Editing? The most time-consuming part of my process, but I still have energy at point. Proofreading? The first couple of rounds are fine, but about the time I hit round three and four, the exhaustion just seems to drop on me all at once.

I need to reread Othella a few more times before I hit the publish button on, like, the 22nd, but right now, I just need a break. I need to take a few days off. Because I'm so tired of working on this (hint: I started this project in Feb; I started the editing stage in April). There comes a point where I start groaning at the prospect of having to reread the same thing AGAIN. And AGAIN. And AGAIN. 

Now, for me, the underlying reason for my tiredness has a lot to do with the fact I'm forced to do the bulk of my work without help...

...but I have this funny feeling that I'm not the only one who eventually gets tired of a project.

So, I'm curious: what's your breaking point? Is it a set period of time? A certain part of the process? When other ideas start pushing their way in?

At what point do you feel the desire to throw your latest manuscript in the fire and scream, "I'm FREE!"?

But, no, really: share your frustrations with me. Let us connect over tales of writerly exhaustion. 

Hey all,

I'm getting close to the release of my second book (June 25th), and as I'm planning out my release strategy, I started wondering how others handled their second releases differently than their first. For me, I wasn't a member of Kboards when I released by first book, and as such, I was missing a lot of important info that I can now incorporate into my second book's release strategy. Things like the 30 day cliff, all the different effective advertisers, the tons of sites I can post my book on for free, mailing lists, etc.

But what about you guys? Did you have any lessons learned from your first release (or any release) that you used to improve your next one? I'd love to hear some stories, advice, etc.

Yo, more experienced people!

How long do price changes usually take for iBooks and Kobo through D2D? I have a promo coming up next week, and I know from experience that GP, KDP, and NP generally change prices within 24 hours, but I want to make sure my iBooks and Kobo prices decrease at the right time, too.

What's the average time for your D2D price changes?

Thanks!

I'm curious. I know all of us here at Kboards write thousands of words a day -cough- but how much do we read? Are most of us the kind of people who speed through 10-20 books a month? More? Are we the people who only pick up a book on the weekends? Do you read during your lunch break, while commuting, etc.? Or are those times you use to write instead?

Tell me, Kboards. How much do you read?

For me, I've picked up my reading pace quite a bit in the last couple months. I got a massive Christmas book haul I'm still working through, and I'm a Net Galley member, and I have this bad habit of entering book giveaways on LT, GR, and Giveaway Hops. So, I pretty much read every day of the week, at least one book a week, often more. To give you an idea, I've read 22 books out of the 50 I picked for my Goodreads 2014 Reading Challenge. I should have gone higher...I'm going to hit that 50 my July.

What about you? Let's discuss the reading habits of writers.

Hey guys,

(Yes, me again.)

Question -- I have Echoes set at $0.99 until Thursday morning, but I only have actual (small, very small) promos set up for today and tomorrow. (I'm testing the waters with small stuff before I move into more expensive promos around the release of my second book.) Is there anything free and relatively quick I could use for Wednesday? I've already blasted it through social media and what not. Any FB groups or anything like that? Anywhere else I can share the news? I've pretty much exhausted my personal social media reach...and, of course, I don't want to spam.

I figure you guys know what's up when it comes to promos. Any suggestions?

I was thinking about plot holes today, guys. Namely, I was thinking about some of the plot holes I've stumbled upon in my drafts. Obviously, being a pantser, plot holes are a way of life. A major role of editing for me is stitching up the holes and ironing out any wrinkles created by them.

What about you guys? Have you ever come across any terrible plot holes in your work? Any funny ones? How do you fix them? Are they usually pretty easy to fix, or are your plot holes the ones that require you to perform major surgery to correct? Have you ever become aware of a plot hole after publishing? What did you do?

Tell me your tales of woe.

(Basically, make me feel better before I finish the novella I'm working on and discovering a horde of embarrassing plot holes when I edit.)

Hey, kboards. Me again.

Recently, I've added a bunch of new features to my blog to help out the indie community (author interviews, new release spotlights, etc.), and I was thinking about adding a weekly roundup feature where I list a bunch of new/interesting indie books I've come across. But since I don't actually have the time to scroll endlessly through Amazon or massive indie author directories, I figured I would just come here and ask if any of you have a book you'd like to have featured. It doesn't need to be new -- maybe you have a favorite book or one you think needs more love?

My favorite genres are sci-fi, mystery/thriller, and urban fantasy, but I'm pretty open to including most genres. My only exceptions are romance/erotica (sorry -- I know there are a lot of you here).

You don't have to do anything special to get listed. Just leave me a link to your book. I'll throw a roundup post up on my blog every Saturday (that's the plan, anyway). I have a little over 2,000 followers, and I link all my blog posts to Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Google+, and Facebook. I'll probably also post it to some Facebook and Google+ groups. If I feel up to it in the near future, I may create a FB page just for the feature.

Anyway, drop a link if you're interested.

(Also, if you're having a promo or something that runs over a Saturday, let me know, and I'll put your book in the roundup for that date with a note about the discount.)

____

EDIT:

Here's the Roundup Lineup for Saturday, April 19th--

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FREE Books

1.) The Getaway by Sonya Bateman
2.) Bear Heart by KJ Colt
3.) The God Decrees by Mark E. Cooper

Sci-fi / Fantasy

4.) Keep Your Enemies Close by H.S. Stone
5.) Life Force by Kevis Hendrickson
6.) Red by Sonya Bateman
7.) Flight to Exile by Chris Reher
8.) BestFriend by William van Winkle
9.) Fate's Haven by Daniel A. Dennis
10.) Rebirth by Shaun Dowdall
11.) Of Shadow Born by S.L. Gray
12.) Blood Born by V.M. Black
13.) Heart of Stone by h lynn keith
14.) Cobweb Empire by Vera Nazarian
15.) Blue Courage, Act 2 by CJ Davis

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The Roundup Post is Here: http://knitewrites.com/2014/04/19/awesome-indie-book-roundup-41914/
The FB page is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Awesome-Indie-Books/220479398153024?ref=hl

Please like and share! Thanks!

Hey guys,

Sorry to bother you with my noob questions again, but I'm about to make some rather important financial decisions, so I thought I'd ask for your help.

I'm planning to release a novelette (or a novella, depending on the final word count) at the end of April/beginning of May (depending on when I finish it), and obviously, it's going to need a cover. I have the cover artist who did the Echoes cover I can contact, or I can choose one of the many you guys have recommended on the forums here. My question is, what's a reasonable price for a novelette/short novella cover? Should I spend the full ~$100+ I did for the Echoes cover? Should I go for a cheaper pre-made? What do you guys think about covers for shorter works?

The reason I ask is that I'm still in the hole from publishing Echoes. I've made back less than a fifth of what it cost me to put out Echoes so far. And I'm afraid that if I keep spending like that, I'm never going get out of the hole. That seriously worries me, especially since money is a concern for me. I can't go blowing hundreds of bucks on every work without eventually getting a return on it.

I know, I know -- I only have one book out. If I put out more, I will eventually gain some traction. I got that. The issue is I don't know if I can keep up the same level of expenses until I do gain traction. I have major expenses coming up in my personal life in the near future, and I can't going throwing out a $100 here and a $100 there over and over and over.

So, I'm kind of at a crossroads here. Covers are very important to me. I want them to look very good. But money is also important to me. Where do I draw the line?

Should I just go for it and splurge on the cover? Should I go pre-made instead and use the savings to spend on future advertising?

Help me, wise people of kboards! When money is tight, what do you do?

By the end of this year, I plan to have works out of varying length (i.e. not all novels), so I just wanted to run my pricing strategy past you more experienced people. My current plan is:

Standard Prices --

Novelette: $1.99
Novella: $2.99
Novel: $3.99

Price Changes --

When I do promos, I'm planning to stick to a $0.99 promo price.

Once I get more than one book into a series, I'm planning to drop the first book price by a dollar.

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Does this sound like a decent strategy overall? I'm a noob at this, so I don't want to make any dumb mistakes.

Thanks!