Good morning, everyone! I am currently sitting in a lovely Starbucks in Tacotown (translation: Tacoma) about to start the next leg of our automotive journey to the University of Washington in Seattle. My girlfriend and I are en route there this morning to attend a panel put on by
Writer.ly called Self Publishing Success at the Urban Center for Horticulture. The panel will feature ten New York Times Bestselling authors, who will talk about publishing, the state of the industry, and self publishing.
For those of you who have not heard of Writer.ly before, it's a social networking site for professionals and freelancers who have any skill relevant to the publishing process, from writing to editing to photography and graphic design. The idea is that, as an author, you can put out a project, designating what you need and what budget you are looking for. People looking for the kind of work you are offering can then bid on the project, and you, as the customer, can choose who you want to do that work. It's a very cool concept, and I've been meaning to talk about it here at Hyperbole for a while now.
In terms of the event today, I have this crazy idea that liveblogging might be a good idea. So this is installment number one. Here's hoping the panel room has wifi! Time to hit the road, Jack.
[Update 9:50 AM]
Well at first we didn't think we would make it, Seattle traffic being Seattle traffic. But here we are! The UW Center for Urban Horticulture is beautiful; to enter the building you, appropriately, have to come in through a garden. If we weren't in such a hurry to get inside we would have lingered, I'm sure.
According to the event page for the panel, the lineup for today includes authors Jasinda Wilder, Jack Wilder, Tina Folsom, Jana DeLeon, Liliana Hart, Debra Holland, Theresa Ragan, Jane Graves, Denise Grover Swank, Colleen Gleason, and Dorien Kelly. The panel will be moderated by Kelsye Nelson, the CEO and Co-Founder of Writer.ly. So far people are chatting and partaking of the best kind of swag, namely free pens and copies of
The Naked Truth about Self-Publishing, which is credited to The Indie Voice: 10 NYT Bestselling Authors.
After reading William Hertling's
Indie & Small Press Book Marketing, which I blogged about
here, I'm really excited to see not only what other suggestions this book has to offer, and especially what these panelists have to say. There's quite a bit of stigma lingering around the Self Publishing Industry, an atmosphere which showed markedly in many ways in my own education, and I'm hoping that today will dispel some of that.
[Update 10:05]
Panel: Begin!
FYI there is a signing event at the Seattle Hilton from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM with the authors of the panel, for those of you interested. It is located on 6th and University. All of the ticket sales today are going to Seattle Freelances, which is an organization which has been around since 1921; it supports writers with events such at this one. Big companies like Amazon and Kickstarter are going to be holding events for writers through Seattle Freelances in the future, and they sound like a really good organization to follow.
[Update 10:10]
Many of these panelists are series authors; more than one have brought up fantasy and vampires; other keywords include cowboys, steampunk and Sherlock Holmes! This is exciting to me for obvious reasons.
It also bears noting amid introductions that more than one of these authors has mentioned the fact that they have sold over a million copies of something they have written, and many of them have mentioned writing
prolifically, one of the members has written twenty six novels! Moral of this story: write. A LOT.
[Update 10:20]
Q: How many books did you have before you had a book that gave you a sustainable income?
A: Answers vary. Examples are 4 books, eight months after beginning publishing; 6 books; first two books.
Dr. Debra says there is a lot more competition for self-publishing now than there were when self publishing first began; she puts an emphasis on niche marketing. Another member claims the most difficult thing is to try to be successful on writing with only one title. "It's not that hard to do well if you have a good product...and multiples of product. It's really hard to sell one book to anyone." (Quotes are going to be unlabeled - sorry! I wish they had their names posted over their heads!)
Q: Difference between publishing traditionally and self publishing
A: Authors control all the marketing and the pricing. They have more control.
As an author self-published, you can make 10-30 times as much money a month because as an author you can tend to your product, advertise for it. "The greatest thing about self publishing is the control. ...Nobody's ever going to be a better advocate for your work than you are."
"You MUST HAVE A GOOD, PROFESSIONAL NEW YORK...COVER. ...You don't have control over that in traditional publishing. ...Cover must be exceptional for [your work] to stand out in the market."
Q: Who is on your Self-Publishing Team?
A: Developmental editor, copyeditor, proofreader, professional cover designer. Other roles include translators, eBook formatters, print formatters, assistant, etc. This does not have to be a huge expense; you can trade these services with other artists and still put out a product that is marketable. You can also do it all yourself. One panelist makes a good point; when first starting, that's just it, you're starting "from the ground up" - you invest very little at first, but once you are making money, it's more cost effective to pay another person to do these sorts of jobs so that you as an author can spend that time writing another book which you can then make more money on.
One panelist brought up that you don't have to get prizes or have high rankings in lists to be successful. Tina had mentioned that she has made two million dollars on a title, and the panelist pointed out that she has never been in the Amazon top 100 or USA Today. "You can be successful in this and not be in the top 100 lists. You can be a Tina Folsom."
Tina: "Trust me, [no one can know your name and you can still make a shitload of money every month.]"
There is a lot of emphasis on
hard work. Jasinda and Jack Wilder apparently worked 20 hours a week on their writing and churned out over ten books in three months. Time to saddle up, folks.
Q: For people who don't have rights back on their books, or for a person whose house no longer exists, how do you get your rights back?
A: "I have an agent who is a Barracuda."
Q: How do you price your eBooks?
A: "As authors, we have a tendency to be needy. ...We want people to read our words... "What we do has value, and takes time and talent. ...Price to make a living." She sells at $3.99 - 5.99.
Compare prices with the top 100 competing titles. It's important to understand your competition and what is selling. "You have to be a good businessperson as well as a good writer." (My note: I have a lot of feels about this distinction, of writing to sell and make money or to write what you feel you must because it's in you to do so, but more on that later.)
[Update 10:46]
Q: What is a loss leader?
A: The loss leader is a free or $0.99 book, usually the first in a series, but the important part is that the loss leader book
must be good. If it's very good, then people will buy the other books for whatever price you set, but if it's not a good book, then you're killed your own venture from the beginning. I would like to think you can recover from this foot-shooting if necessary, but hey.
Q: What are some of the most effective marketing techniques?
A: BookBub - 1.2 Million people on the mailing list; the people there will read your books and look at your covers. If you are rejected from BookBub, there is something wrong and you should fix it.
Pixel of Ink, eReaders to Date are also places to run ads for your book that will jack up sales.
"If you do not have books to promote and market, don't waste your money. [The best thing is the next book.]"
Have shelves on different virtual bookstores, as many bookstores as you can have. "You have to put that money into your business in order to get it back out." Invest in the people who are working this industry to make a professional, competitive product. If you want to be noticed on a professional level, you have to operate on a professional level and employ professional level people.
"It comes back to the book. If your book starts selling, people start coming after you. Write a book and start making sales, that's the best [marketing strategy]."
"Newsletter list. ...Collect the names of all the people who will immediately buy your book." If you are writing, get a newsletter NOW. And then make links available so that people can add themselves to your list.
Q: Personal assistant for social media, etc?
A: Assistants do whatever you need them to, and they seem to be really really important because they take some of the pressure off.
Q: Street Team?
A: Once you gain momentum, a street team is essential. They are your core group of readers. "Anything I can do for those guys" - they are selling her books all over the world. Ever street teamer gets promo materials (swag!) and they distribute it around and plant these materials. It finds more readers. She rewards them; for example, they helped boost her onto a list and she sent everyone on the street team a free signed copy of one of her books.
You can also have a street team who does not take that much fiscal input.
Street Teams are great because you can do things like send advance copies in return for honest reviews on the release date. Not all Street Teams have to be organized or formal.
Q: Where do you find your professional team?
A: Word of mouth, through becoming part of a community. There is a list of resources in the book. Also you can do it yourself; for example, if you find a self-published book with a bangin cover, find out who created it and find a way to contact them.
Look inside indie books; the names will be credited.
[Update 11:10]
On Traditional Publishing: "What are they doing for me that I am not already doing?" The general atmosphere in here is that the publishers can woo you, but that they do not really have that much guarantee of anything and, ultimately, publishing traditionally means relinquishing a lot of control.
"Series sell!" They feed on each other, that's the nature of them; snowball effect, readership style.
Quantity is actually key in self-publishing, it appears: "If you put multiple titles out at the beginning... it will take you much less time to start drawing in income." She put emphasis on the fact that it can be anything - novels, short stories, etc, but that places like Amazon do not include you in the email blasts if you do not have a certain number of titles.
But remember to keep your goals in mind. What are your goals and expectations? If you want to sell sell sell and make money, do the aforementioned, but "If this is a book of your heart, and it's very important for you to write it, then do so. [But know that it might not make you money right away.]" -Dr. Debra Holland.
Q: What is the one thing you wish you knew before you started this?
A: Wish we had known to research what was selling and what was popular.
Wish I had known to drop the other series in favor of the one that sell the best, in order to focus on it (she has multiple series spinning).
Wish I would have started writing and self publishing earlier; I struggled with focusing and sitting down and actually writing. (An exercise: Sprinting. Post your wordcount every hour on the hour and sustain it for a long time!) -Dr. Deb
Wish I had focused on one genre and then jumped into others once I was established.
Wish I had focused on one thing; I was too scattered.
Wish I had a plan: when to release books, how to release them, pricing, timing. "You've never heard of me, but I make good money. You can do this."
Wish I had moved into self publishing earlier and write faster. I wish I had known to protect the joy in writing more.
Wish I had known what I loved to write more. "Believe in your stories. Don't let anyone tell you you can't write a story about a one-legged cowboy with a lisp. Believe in yourself."
Q: What are your words of encouragement? What is our battlecry?
A: Don't push yourself so much that you lose your joy in writing. Take care of yourself physically and emotionally; be ergonomically correct so that you can continue to work effectively.
"It's too much work to write a story that doesn't sell." DO NOT THINK THIS. If you find yourself squashing your creativity, find out why, and work toward not doing it.
"It's not a competition." Remember that the writer sitting next to you is your best ally, your best support system. There is no competition. There's no reason to not help each other. "You're not in a race for the finish. Write the book."
"Write the book. And don't have writer ADD...even if you have another great idea. Sit down and write the book. ...Nothing else matters but writing the book."
