For quite a while now I've wanted to
inventory what I have learned from the efforts of being an IndieAuthor over the
past four years. So I am grateful for Jill’s generosity and hope that my guest
blog will save you time and frustration as you journey down your own path as an
Indie.
"Ten Things to Know About
IndiePub"
One.
Readers want to be able to ‘escape’ on multiple levels into the world
you’ve created for them through your fiction.
That means using music scores, book trailers and other audio and visual
aids that brings your story to life for them.
[for this purpose I use Pinterest, YouTube, FlipSnack, and scoredwebsites.]
You will see a lot of innovative, energetic
authors trying new software, programs, events and
activities to promote their
books. Don’t dismiss ANY of them. Do what you, as a writer, do best: Be
curious. Get behind the scenes and ask,
“How did they do that?” even if their book is on a topic that might not
interest you – how they got your attention should!
Two.
Readers will want to be friends with you. Use social networking-engagement to check in
on the welfare and activities of your readers.
Be reciprocal, not egotistical!
Three.
Your REAL personality should match your social networking, and blogging
personality; and all messages should come close to matching your genre. Imagine Marilyn Monroe, with her baby talk
voice, being the author of an academic tome on physics. It wouldn’t work unless Einstein was at her
side egging her on. Stay True To You.
Caveat: Unless you’re John Locke (a husband and father) egging women readers on
as Donovan Creed. If it’s your character’s personae you can point your finger
at . . . have fun!
Four.
Never publish an ebook title that you have not word-for-word edited ON
PAPER. Editing solely from a computer screen is begging for trouble. I am
publishing a book soon that I printed out and realized that I had pasted
Chapter Ten into the eManuscript twice. Yikes!
As excited as you are to get your work out
to your readers, proceeding ploddingly slowly and doing it right is better than
slapping-up and realizing too late that your work is fraught with mistakes like
using ‘the’ where it should read ‘they’.
Five.
Buying advertising does NOT work on ANY level effectively enough to
invest more than token pennies on ads, and only if your most ardent backer is
offering a ‘deal’. Personal
relationships, and recommendations, equate directly to book sales. Build your tribe. Caveat: If you MUST, the
‘best’ deal for book release advertising is BookBuzzr, Goodreads, and Facebook.
But reciprocal blog tours are the friendliest way to share your book news, in
my opinion.
Six.
LIKE your Readers. Really. Like.
Them. Write in a genre, or on a topic,
that interests you enough personally that it is ‘a natural’ to engage via
Facebook, Twitter, and through your blog with the people who also like your
topic. One big reason I left Confederate
history behind and moved into the supernatural genre is because it was such a
better fit for me personally. I’m proud
of my debut [Civil War] novel, but it’s easier to move in and out of the supernatural
genre, because it’s a topic that is second nature to me.
Seven.
Be as professional as you can afford to be. For each of your titles project/pencil out
what you believe your first-year royalty income will be, based on your
commitment to carve out time for book marketing. Then, spend 10% of that royalty projection on
a) cover design; b) professional editing; and c) ads/book trailers (I use
iStock for my photos, videos, and scores).
For instance: If you think your ebook
should earn $6,000 the first year compute thusly e.g. $6000 minus the ‘royalty
split’ to distribution vendors Kindle, Nook, Smashwords = $1800 [your NET is
$4200]. Therefore, my recommendation is that authors spend $420 on production
costs netting, after aggressive marketing, a ‘take’ of $3780 the first year. Work out YOUR formula and stay loyal to
it. Scrimping on production in these
competitive times is going to make the contrast between your DIY eBook and
professional authors coming over to IndiePub even more stark.
Eight.
Be a Mentor to emerging IndieAuthors.
It’s karma.
Nine.
The *-one-star. Now that you are
‘in the biz’ don’t ever, EVER *-one-star a book. And don’t ‘go after’ or ‘stalk’ a *-one-star
reviewer who duns you. Once you become
an author, you give up the delight of dive-bombing a book with your skanky
one-star. A lot of authors do the
‘genealogy’ on one-stars and are able to discover authors who have hired guns
shooting down the competition. I guarantee, word WILL get out.
Ten.
The Orphanage. Don’t leave any
orphans on the ‘sales line’. I cannot even
begin to count the number of books that are Indie Pub’bed and then never
marketed. If you’re not going to put
forth a respectable marketing effort for your books, take them down. If you’re leaving the pub scene, even for a
number of months, ‘unpublish’ your eBooks; let them cool off and come back with
a new product description, a fresh eBook cover, something that rejuvenates your
efforts.
Wishing You Each ‘The Best’ that the
literary world has to offer!
* * *
Emily Hill writes in the Supernatural genre
and publishes her paperbacks and eBooks on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and
Smashwords. Visit her website located at:
http://www.emilyhillwriter.com/
Emily’s
latest eBook: Voodoo Vision: New Orleans
House of Spirits, a 2012 NaNoWriMo winner, is now available on Kindle
US Kindle
UK, and Smashwords
Follow her on Twitter @24GhostTales
