Your Top 5 Tips and Top 5 Myths

I'm not sure where you are going with this thread. Per number two my opinion doesn't matter. Keeping that in mind I'll try to be brief.

There are both good and bad points here, but I would re-arrange the lists. I agree with maybe 20% of what you have here.

"Price stupidly low" is not something I recommend. Nor is avoiding permafree. My best series has a permafree funnel and the rest of the series is priced at $4.99. It makes me five figures a month with a 20% sell-through. I have not advertised since December.

KU is for shorts, new books, or people who need exposure. Its a tool as well as an alternative marketplace, not an end-all-be-all, unless your books fit the model.

Your protagonist needs both faults and things they excel at to be memorable and to keep the reader interested in what happens to them. People don't read the story to get to the end, they read it to find out what happens to the characters. If that character is "the most normal and good person you can find" it will be hard to make them interesting enough for the reader to care about.

You can and should sell at stores outside Amazon. Unless your book fits the KU mold I mentioned above you are simply giving up on millions of potential readers and affiliate money. Amazon accounts for maybe 50% of my sales, the rest are across the other platforms and growing every month.

All books are different. Getting people interested in them can follow many paths. I don't think there are many absolutes in this game, but there are many that come close. Most fall into the common sense category. Editing, coverart, research, formatting. These are all important, but without a good story it all amounts to a well dressed-pig.

That said; Will my way work for you? Maybe, maybe not. But its working for me very well. Find what works for you and discard the rest, keeping in mind there are no absolutes. What works today way not work six months from now.

You asked for a tip. Here's mine: "When at the gym, never take advice from the guy who is in worse shape than you."

My 2 cents. Free and worth every penny.

This is going to be fun, because I imagine that the OP is going to get ALL KINDS of pushback on his tips and myths. But, FWIW, here's mine.

Tips:

1) Don't use an aggregator when you go wide. Just don't do it. If you start selling well on other platforms, you're going to calculate how much money you're losing to the aggregator, and then you're going to want to upload direct. Fine and dandy, except you lose all your reviews you accumulated. Happened to me, and I lost over 140 reviews on one title. It doesn't take long to upload direct, trust me.

2) Related to above - watch out for Google Play when you upload there. That site is weird. You don't really know how to upload your cover, because it doesn't really say. You have to figure out for yourself that you just upload the cover at the same time you upload your book, and with the same button. For those of us used to a button saying "upload cover," Google Play is just strange and doesn't hold your hand. So, be careful when you upload there. I've had books go live without a cover and I've had books that aren't searchable because I forgot to put my author's name in the metadata.

3) Whether or not a cover really makes a huge difference is....not yet determined. I heard a study on one of my podcasts where the author asked his readers what attracted them to his books. He had something like 14,000 people on his mailing list that he asked. Cover was like 3%. When I first started, I had a really bad cover that I made myself. But I still made money on it. And I've experimented with different covers, and I don't think they hurt or helped my sales. That said, I still like having nice covers just because they're not embarrassing.

4) Permafree DOES work. I just had to put that out there, as Shane says that it doesn't. I guess it doesn't work for everyone, but it definitely has worked for me and for a lot of other writers, some of whom are making literally millions a year. Personally, it changed me from being the tiniest of prawns to actually having a career. A five-figure a month career. Don't knock it until you try it.

5) I agree with Shane on one thing - study the top sellers, if you want to become one. While I do think that there is value in writing what's in your heart, the problem with that is that you're going to have to spend a lot of time looking for your readership. Whereas if you study the top sellers and write something similar, your readers will find you (as long as you promote).

Myths:

1) Mailing lists are the holy grail. FWIW, I believe that mailing lists are WAY overrated. I guess they probably work if you have a long, ongoing serial like Wayne, and the readers are eagerly anticipating your next book. But if you aren't trying to pimp your next book in your serial, and you're putting out something brand new....well, I'm just going to say that my particular readers on my mailing list couldn't care less. So, I guess YMMV, but in my experience, I don't get that excited about having over 1,000 people on my list. Facebook too. Same thing.

2) You're going to make this publishing thing work if you don't have a strategy. I posted this before, but it bears repeating - you should have a roadmap for what you're doing, and you must know why you're doing what you're doing. Whatever that happens to be.

3) ACX is a good idea. Trust me, you need to go into that one with your eyes wide open. And probably stick with royalty share. I made the HUGE mistake of going all-in with six of my books, and didn't go for royalty share. I doubt I'll ever get that investment back. If there was one thing that I would like a mulligan on, it's doing ACX. The problem is that there's no good way to publicize them. Yet. Hopefully there will be one day, but, for now, and until there's a real service with a lot of readers eager to try audio, be cautious. Very cautious.

4) Permafree doesn't work. Just had to put that in there, because it bears repeating that it does work. Maybe not for everyone, but it's usually worth a try.

5) Bad reviews define who you are as a writer, and you should believe them more than the good ones. Actually, this is probably just a me thing, but I tend to believe the negative reviews much more than the positive ones. And this really, really messes with my head and my writing. I hear those reviews echoing in my ears when I'm writing something new. The good ones I dismiss. That's a dangerous thing - don't go down that path. Patty Jansen always says not to read reviews, and, believe me, I wish I could take her advice. Realize that reviews in general - both positive and negative - should carry equal weight. Learn from the bad reviews, but don't write to cater to the people who hate you. Actually, this one should go into the tips section.

Sheesh. Don't know where to start.

No, not all of us who make our own covers "suck." Yes, I make my own covers and I get asked frequently "who did your cover?" I really, really dislike sweeping generalizations like, "if you designed it yourself and didn't pay a lot of money for it, then it sucks. Sorry. It just does." And btw, insulting those of us who do our own covers and then saying "sorry" doesn't make it okay. It's still an insult, and it's not funny.

No, we don't all feel like we hate our readers and wish them all dead for poor reviews. It's perfectly fine to agree to disagree. That's life. I certainly wouldn't recommend wishing your readers dead, nor would I recommend posting that on a public message board.

Price everything at $0.99? No. No. And NO. That goes back to knowing your genre, knowing your audience, and studying what sells in your particular market.

"Don't write heroes or heroines who are corrupt or have temptations or flaws or have mental problems." Again, know your genre. Readers in my genre do NOT want a Mary-Sue character, and they enjoy a flawed lead character. Plenty of successful stories are centered around extremely flawed characters, throughout all genres. Take time to know what your readers are looking for.

Perma-free discussions are rampant here on KBoards, but it never fails to amaze me how people want to proclaim one way or another is absolutely correct. Perma-free still works well for many, and it doesn't work at all for others. Again, it is about the specific genre and your specific readership. There is no one-size-fits-all.

You know what I think is a myth? All these posts on here from experts who insist there is only ONE way to do anything.

5 TIPS:

1. Find your own path. Look at how others do things and select those nuggets that are right for you.

2. Be a little wary of any promotional site that charges $25+.

3. Give your book away strategically. The ultimate goal should be to sell a lot of books at full price.

4. Write about things for which you have some passion. If you're just in it for the cash, go work for an ad agency. You'll make more money and you'll get laid a lot more often.

5. Try like hell to get accepted by BookBub. There is nothing else like it.

Since myths come and go, I think I'll just stick with tips.

I want to add something about KU to what I said earlier.

KU seems to be a hard thing for many to wrap their heads around and I think its because many see it as an absolute.

There's a writer here on Kboards who is doing very well using KU. Successful she is. My fear is that the new writers reading these boards see that and think "KU works for her, so it'll work for me." They never ask themselves why it works for her. They don't take into account the genre, length, and price that she places her books into. They fail to factor in the readership she has built up and how she leverages that to keep her readers coming back for her latest work. There's no magic involved, its simply that her books fit the KU model very well. They fit the KU model before there was KU! Instead of asking "It works for her, why isn't it working for me!?!" they should be asking "Why does it work so well for her and how can I do the same?"

Ok, off my soapbox. I'm told I need to clean the garage and do something involving mulch today. Groan.

This thread has the potential to be a informative one, I hope it doesn't digress to something else.

Hey! Annie has a new book out!

I kind of agree with half of each point, as each point is conditional.
1) Permafree still works...if you promote it properly.
2) Listen to bad reviews...if they're complaints about editing, plot holes, etc. Don't listen to every bad review. Some people won't like your work. It doesn't mean that it's bad.
3) On writing novels...this one is just speculation on my part. I know many people have built loyal fan bases with shorter works, but you miss out on a lot of readers who will only read "full novels". I know that just in my case as a reader, I prefer epic fantasy, and when I spend that much of my time reading a book or series I become a devoted fan to that author. I will love Robert Jordan for the rest of my life.
4) Pricing...while I have done well with permafree and 2.99, you really can price more for longer works. That being said, I wouldn't price a 30K book at more than $2.99. Personally I price 50K at 2.99, 50-70K at 3.99, and my new release, which will be 100K will be priced at 4.99.
5) Don't sell on other vendors...I make 1/4 of my income on ibooks and nook, and my sales on each vendor have been going up each month. I recently published to Kobo, and that has started climbing as well. Plus, how often does Apple fail to bring in customers? From what I can gather, they are putting a lot of energy into ibooks, and I really see that market growing in the future. I for one do not want to be entirely dependent on one vendor.

Tips:

1) Do not allow your emotional state to be tied up in things you can't control.
2) Permafree works if you do it right.
3) No one knows anything.
4)
5)

Myths:

1) "Free" devalues books.
2) Bookbub is the only marketing option that works.
3) _____ doesn't sell.
4) You must spend $,$$$ to properly publish a book.
5) You don't have to worry about marketing until you have XX books out.

Patty Jansen always says not to read reviews, and, believe me, I wish I could take her advice.

Click to expand...

Seriously, I stopped reading my reviews and my happiness increased ten-fold!

Tips:

1. Go wide. It's worked for me

2. Following from #1, don't pay for promos that only link to Amazon. Well unless it's a really good deal. Like if it's a fiverr promo. But if you are paying $50-100 for a promo spot, you want them promoting your books everywhere.

3. I'd agree with having professional covers. Some people have the talent to do it themselves but don't delude yourself. If you make your own, ask someone who will tell you the truth.

4. If you are selling 1 or 2 books a day, rather than try to use the same techniques as someone hitting the top seller lists, look at what people one or two levels above you are doing. Eg. a bestselling author might get by announcing a new release to their mailing list but if you only have 2 people on your list, that's not going to work.

5. Reviews are awesome. I've got a theory that the more reviews you have, the more you'll get. It's like when you go to a nightclub - no one wants to be the first on the dance floor.

Myths:

1. The 30/90 day cliff. I've had books that have sold more once they've fallen off the cliff.

2. Keywords - maybe they work but it seems like a huge timesink.

3. Subtlety - unless you are writing literary fiction, go for the most obvious title and description. If people are scratching their heads, wondering what it's about, they are moving on to the next book.

I'll drip my toe in…

TIPS
1 - Know and read your genre.  Know the tropes.  Know what sells.  Know the pricing strategies. 
2 - You can make money writing short but statistically novels sell better.  My readers want to settle in to a story and peel back each layer.  See #1.
3 - Try and make every book better than the last.  Challenge yourself.
4 - Permafree works.  (In my genre)  I actually pulled my permafree because I didn't think it was doing much and my sales immediately fell.  It was doing more than I realized.  But permafree might not work for everyone.  See #1. 
5 - Have books priced at various price points.  I have books at free, 99 cents, 2.99, 3.99, and 4.99. 

MYTHS
1 - Anyone can make money in romance.
2 - Anyone can make money in erotica.
3 - FB ads don't work.
4 - KU is the devil. (I'm not in it but I don't think it's evil)
5 - Just figure out Amazon algorithms and we'll all be rich.

I'll play. I think it could be an interesting thread, so taking it to heart to share.


Top Five Tips


Your Milage May Vary

If one thing suggested to you isn't working, try something else. Free works for some people, just as do other strategies. For example, free does work for me VERY, VERY well, but I'm in the young adult romance market, and they seem to take to this pretty well. I also have 12+ books going, and more coming up.

So one person may vote for a strategy and stand by it. If you believe it will work, try it. If not, try something else. Do different things until it works, and then don't mess with it.

Readers Are Fickle, Precious Snowflakes

Meaning, you'll be one person's favorite author, and one person's crappiest writer. It's easy for people to look at the one star reviews and lose hope, despite the 100 other five star reviews.

Before you get caught up in your downward spiral, take time to go look at great writers. Mark Twain, Sir Author Conan Doyle... whoever your favorite was growing up. Then go read those one star reviews. As crazy as it is, they, too, get one star reviews from people.

People are different. They have different tastes. Your one stars aren't your audience. It's the ones that loved it.

Mind Your Own Business

Taking one from Robert Kiyosaki's books. Your first priority is to write your story, make sure you capture their information (newsletter subscription, app download, whatever), and make sure your books are available where you need them to be. Spend 80 to 90 percent of your work time doing this. The other spend in forums/Facebook, etc. Set up an easy flow system so releasing books happens in a process flow. If you need help, ask how to stream line it to make it simple, or hire out for it.

Find Mentors, Even If They Aren't Direct

Love Neil Gaiman? Love C. L. Lewis? Lee Child? Find one or two 'mentors' and let them guide how you work. I recommend two, one author who is two steps ahead of you as far as sales, and then your absolute favorite author of all time, or at least at the moment.

The one author ahead of you, study their market, their word counts, their covers, their blurbs, how they market. (Facebook, try to figure out if they run BookBub ads, etc.) If they update a blog on their progress, it'll be easier. For both of your 'mentors', find anything they've got about writing, the process. Study their craft, their voice, their style. Rewrite their books (for yourself, call it a pet project that will go into that infamous no-one-will-ever-see-this trunk) in your own style. It can help make you think of word choices, plot ideas, etc.

Read All Those Books On Writing

My favorite stop at the bookstore is the how to write section. Every few months, I'll go browse what's new. It's where I find things like Describer's Dictionaries and how to write an ongoing series. You may not use every tip and strategy. Use what works for you.

Those books aren't just for people trying to get into the publishing industry. They teach you how to write well, to get your point across, to make your characters come to life. Learning about self publishing is awesome, learning to write a better story should be integrated into that.

If you feel you don't learn from reading like that, take a class, join a writer's group, find a conference, get that audio book. One tip that makes your writing better can make a difference.


Top Five Myths

There's A Golden Tip Out There

This is equivalent to "the secret handshake" to get in with agents and publishers. If you scour the boards enough, you'll soak up that one magic trick that makes a difference. The magic trick is: a voodoo doll unicorn fairy and hard work. Write your books, implement strategies that make the most sense for you, hope that readers pick up on what you're writing. If it's not working, try a different strategy, but keep going.

I've Got 100 One Stars, And Five Good Reviews, But It's The Readers, Not Me

If you're writing the books you absolutely LOVE, and it's simply a very touchy subject and you're willing to take that, good. You're doing fine.

But if you're getting more than 1/2 bad reviews from your overall review count (not when you've got TWO reviews or even 10 reviews, wait on this until you've got something like 40 or 50), either it's the wrong category or there's something else. Study up on those writing books. Not everyone has to love you, and readers are those fickle snowflakes, but the majority you need to listen to. Something's wrong, even if they can't agree on what it is. It doesn't mean you're done. It means you've missed a step somewhere. Start over, try again. Keep writing. Keep studying your market/books on writing, etc.

You Need 10,000 Loyal Readers To Be Successful

This depends on your goals. In order to be 'wealthy', all you need to do is replace your current income so you're writing full time (or whatever your part time/income dream is). Let's say you need just $2000 a month to stop going to work. If you sell books for $3.99, and just for the sake of simplicity, I'll round that down to $3 after Amazon and others take their cut. (Yes, I know that's wrong math, just do your own, it's an example. ) That's like 600-700 sales you'll need to replace your monthly income. That's around 700 regular readers, not 10,000. 10,000 is nice, always appreciate more, but if you're looking at your first goal, 700, might seem like an easier reach than a higher number.

This is going to depend on what you write and how much you write. If you write a new story every month, 700 may be all you need. Maybe you write a book every three months. Have 1200 regular readers and then the rest that fickle in and out trying your books. There's a magic number for you somewhere, figure it out and make it your first goal. You can make goals for beyond that step, just make an easier to reach one for now.

You Need To Be Involved With Your Readers

You can be, if you'd like, but what they want are more books by you. They'll live if you don't say hello to them every day, or chat on Facebook every hour. Answering fan mail can also be a slightly hazardous thing. They'll give you their opinions, try to gain spoilers, and ask a billion questions of you. Sometimes crazies come out trying to find out where you live. Do yourself a favor, yes, be nice to everyone, but be careful, too. Get a second opinion on an email if there's something that doesn't seem right. Answer who you can, but if the email is questionable, go with your gut instinct and report it or just ignore it.

Checking Your Sales Page Too Much Leads To Cancer

While not true, I want to tell people that rumor sometimes just so they stop flipping out over every sale, every lack of sale over the last hour.

You can't write if you're looking at your stats every hour, and actually notice if reporting is slow over a four hour period. Love you to death, but OMG save your sanity. You're scaring the new kids.

The sales pages will be there when you've finished your next book, or at the end of the day. Set a time, once a day, to check. I check sales in the morning to get a general idea of what was made each day, what books were selling, etc. It's enough.

Tips:

1) Learn HTML and as many tech subjects as you can in your down time. The product you are mostly selling, an ebook, is a website wrapped up. Learning HTML will serve you well in understand what might go wrong with your formatting and also allow you to control your own platform, like your website and social media accounts.

2) Learn basic image manipulation, how to put words on there, how to resize. Reading a few books on graphic design principles isn't a bad idea either as that will aid you in either making your own covers or talking intelligently with a designer.

3) Patience, grasshopper. Most of us who have "made it" worked our tails off for 1 year+. It took multiple books, strategy and a tenacious will to keep going when sometimes the results weren't stellar. Have a 6 month, 1 year, 3 year plan for yourself, a clear idea on WHAT you plan to grow, and that should be # of books out there #1, and then pick 3-4 other ways to reach readers like a mailing list, blog, twitter, facebook, pinterest etc. whatever interests you. Don't do them ALL, be a master at a few you can run well.

4) Learn how to study the market. While this in unpalpable to the author side of your brain, it feels mercenary, it is critical to the publisher side of your business. A publisher KNOWS what's selling and what's not in the genre. A publisher KNOWS the average price of the top 100 books, the top 100 new releases, and even the top few pages of the pop list.

5) Remember you are a publisher. We really should call ourselves independent PUBLISHERS not authors. This is a business. Learning some business principles is also vital. You need to know your balance sheet, your expenses, if you have a proper license for the photo you're using etc. An indie author just writes, and indie publisher SELLS the writing.

Top Myths

1) There is a magic price. Sorry. But there are many of us who have sold our book with free, 99 cents, all the way up to $9.99. It takes specific strategies at each price point. You must learn them for the price point YOUR genre can handle.

2) What worked for author XYZ will work for me absolutely. This business changes every 6 months. Not kidding. Either Amazon introduces a new program, there's a major change in the algorithms, etc. Any plan or strategy you are going to try, you need to do some research on the current situation.

3) I don't matter. I see many independent publishers forgetting about their unique little snowflakeness. YOU are by and far the most important variable in your success or not. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? How can you overcome the second list by leveraging the first? There you go, you DO matter. Your plans should revolve around your reality and abilities, not others.

4) Other venues don't work as well as Amazon because they're broken. No, I'm sorry to say that for most indie publishers, other venues do not work for them because they do not promote and push their books on those platforms as often as the share that Amazon link. When you truly decide to stop being a self-fulfilled prophecy of Amazon being your best channel, you CAN see results on other vendors. I motivated myself to do all the work it takes to get the word out that my books are EVERYWHERE by researching that it is estimated that Amazon hold 65% of the ebook market. Okay. I know what I make on Amazon. Am I okay with potentially 53.5% of what I am making on Amazon to just never happen? Um. No. But it takes multiple books, strategy, and time to get a foothold on the other vendors, just like it took those things for me to figure out Amazon's visibility machines.

5) All readers are equal. The readers you need to most work hard for are the readers who will be your superfans. That's like less than 10% of your overall sales. Figure out a way to engage with them, they will keep you motivated and help you spread the word about each new release. If you dwell on the reader who DIDN'T like your book you will fail. Because the readers who did love your book are waiting for your next one. Write your story for them. Be the best you can be for them. Don't worry about the reader who hated you or hated your book. They were never you customer in the first place.

Hope that helps. Sorry if I repeated any tips or myths. And just my opinions.

Lydniz said:

Tips:

Write good books that people want to read.

Erm. That's it, really.

Click to expand...

Actually, I love you Lydniz, but I would put this one in the myths section. The notion that all you need is a good book to have a good readership is....not true most of the time. "If you build it they will come" worked in the movie Field of Dreams, but, in real life, you need something to find your readers. Because there are just too many good books out there.

Case in point: There is a poster here, I won't name names, but she's now selling a ton. I mean, a ton. It wasn't always so. She worked to find her readers by contacting bloggers and reviewers. And she made her first book permafree. So, basically, I think she went from selling less than one hundred books a month to several thousand. She obviously has a good book that people want to read. But, until she took proactive steps to find those people who would love her books, she didn't have the readership.

Most people are the same. You can't, generally, just put your book up and hope that it's going to sell just because it's awesome. It might be awesome, but you really have to promote, somehow, someway.