The ‘No B.S. Guide’ to Self-Publishing — Part One — One Honest Indie
You know what? I could keep writing forever about Seth Godin and whatever weird trend is developing on social media. And painting a rosy picture of everything. Promise you unicorns and rainbows.
But I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to go easy on anyone here, myself included.
What I will do is share the knowledge I’ve obtained over the last thirty years of working toward where I am today.
But I’m not going to start with thirty years ago. I’ll get to that part, though. Eventually. 🙂
What I’m sharing today is an updated version of something I wrote during the “boom days” of ebooks. It won’t tell you how to make millions as a writer, but it will tell you the truth about what I did and why.
So, without further ado here’s …
PART ONE: INTRODUCING ME (AGAIN)
When I first ventured into fiction writing, conventional wisdom was to never self-publish one’s work. It was thought to be nothing less than professional suicide. Writers who self-published were looked down upon as poor, pathetic desperate souls who didn’t have the talent or persistence to impress agents and/or publishers (especially the big ones in New York, aka, “real ones”).
I followed this advice and ended up signing a contract for a three-book mystery series with a small press, which went under nine months later. My debut novel went out of print. So much for that. But I kept writing and querying agents and small presses, anyway. Over the years, I revised one novel, wrote a sequel and completed two standalone novels. Meanwhile, I still had this out-of-print novel just sitting and burning a hole in my computer. Finally, I took matters into my own hands. I decided I’d flout conventional wisdom and self-publish the book.
I was encouraged to do so in part because my local chapter of Sisters in Crime had previously published a short story anthology with the same small press I’d been with and decided to reissue their book through Lulu.com. It was through that company that I began my self-publishing journey.
When I made this decision, I had absolutely no expectation of making a lot of money from the enterprise. I was well aware of the realities of being a published author, let alone a self-published one. There’s marketing involved, no matter what. Assuming you intend to sell any books, which most authors want to do. That seems really obvious.
I also had no clue whatsoever about ebooks (not until 2009) and had given no thought at all to publishing them. It was only after I read a couple of “bloggers in the know” on the topic that it even occurred to me to produce electronic copies of my book. And there was this new-fangled thing called the Kindle, being offered by (then) online bookseller (and future Everything Store) Amazon.
Since my intent in self-publishing was to create awareness of my work, with the end goal of finding an agent and/or a publisher, I gave very little thought to any notions of making bestseller lists or winning awards. I just wanted to build an online presence and have the opportunity to show them (“them” being pretty much anyone involved in the publishing business) that I could tell at least a halfway decent story.
When I decided to check out this ebook thing that was supposed be so hot, I made sure the agreement specified nonexclusive rights to distribute my work. This was extremely important to me, because like I said, I was still looking for a publisher.
Right away, I saw that it took much less time and planning to publish an ebook than a print book. So, in a move I once would’ve called desperate and/or ridiculous, I released my first novel as an ebook in June 2009, and followed up with a print version a month later. If I had known at the time where this was going to lead, I would have been nothing less than astonished.
Toward the end of 2010, I was making enough money from publishing novels (keep in mind, I had only published two of them, at that point) to essentially live on the income. In addition, I’d heard rumors that the New York Times bestseller list was being expanded to include indie authors. I made two crucial decisions at that point.
Here I am being interviewed for Voice of America. I appear at around the 1:06 mark. That video went up on YouTube on Sept. 9, 2009. My, how things have changed since then!
While I anticipated most of my sales would come from print books with some of my income deriving from ebooks, in fact the opposite was true. If anyone had told me I’d sell nearly 13,000 downloads of my first novel by the end of January 2011, I’d have laughed. The simple fact is I did just that. Not only that, but the ebook version of my novel became the #1 hardboiled mystery on Amazon for about a month during 2010.
But that was nothing compared to what happened next.
Toward the end of 2010, I was making enough money from publishing novels (keep in mind, I had only published two of them, at that point) to essentially live on the income. In addition, I’d heard rumors that the New York Times bestseller list was being expanded to include indie authors. I made two crucial decisions at that point.
The first was to stop freelancing and devote myself to writing fiction. Trying to doboth was wearing me out, due to my chronic health problems. Between writing books, blogging, and trying to freelance, I was wearing down and sacrificing time I could spend writing novels on doing “writing for hire,” or to put it another way, writing in which I held no copyright. Good for a bit of quick cash, but not the hoped-for focus of my writing career.
The second was to keep my novels priced really low at 99 cents, while everyone was counseling that the better move was to charge at least $2.99 for books and get a higher royalty (70% for books priced at least $2.99, as opposed to 35% for books priced lower than that).
As a result of these and a variety of factors completely beyond my control, my first novel made the New York Times bestseller list. Twice. I also made more from selling ebooks at a lower price based on volume.
In fact, I did well enough to be invited to appear on this panel during Bouchercon 2011 in St. Louis, MO.
Both my first and second novel made the Kindle Top 100 in the U.S. and U.K. That was simply mind-blowing. Certainly, I couldn’t complain. The problem was I couldn’t have told you, “Why me?” What did I do or not do that made it all possible? My only strategy was to be visible online through blogging and occasional visits to Twitter and Facebook. I could write a whole book about the group of authors I collaborated with in terms of cross-promotion, book blurbs, and other marketing efforts. But the main point I’m trying to make is that, because I had no idea who my readers were nor had I established a genuine connection with most of them, my success was fleeting. And Amazon’s algorithms won’t help you get to know your readers but they will help Amazon get plenty of information about you .
Both my first and second novel made the Kindle Top 100 in the U.S. and U.K. That was simply mind-blowing. Certainly, I couldn’t complain. The problem was I couldn’t have told you, “Why me?” What did I do or not do that made it all possible? … I had no idea who my readers were nor had I established a genuine connection with most of them, my success was fleeting. And Amazon’s algorithms won’t help you get to know your readers, but they will help Amazon get plenty of information about you .
Again, it would take another book to explain the whole sales debacle that took place after Amazon launched Kindle Unlimited. But that isn’t why I’m writing this.
The point here is that without being a tech genius or particularly gifted on the computing front, I managed to bring my out-of-print book back to life and continue to write books in the series and release them.
If you are interested in just getting a book out there, the best bet is to publish your work in ebook form. It’s easy, it’s relatively cheap, and depending on your comfort with learning basic technical skills and the manner you choose to distribute your work, there are ways to minimize the costs of producing the books. At one time, ebooks represented an exponentially growing market and one in which just offering the lowest price could maximize profit. This is no longer the case. Audiobooks now reportedly lead the way in terms of growth areas for book marketers. And who knows what the future holds? In general, the media (publishing, film, radio, television, music, etc.) seem to be in an ever-changing state.
As I write this, the situation is further complicated by the pandemic, which reportedly has affected audiobook sales. And print sales. Maybe. Depending on what source you want to believe. And who knows if that’ll change? Or when? Or how?
Whichever format you decide to release your books in first, the bottom line is that simply getting your work out there and visible will serve you better than waiting for others to approve of it based upon your query letters. It will also help establish your brand, your platform, and all those other awesome marketing terms components that make up your online presence. This is true whether you wish to remain an indie author or, eventually, find a publisher.
PS: I can get into “the whole sales debacle that took place after Amazon launched Kindle Unlimited” at some point. Just not now. 🙂
PPS: And because I love music and this one just feels right!
PPS: My journey as a videographer began here! 🙂
PPPS: How interesting! I did the same thing in 2011, but neither The Washington Post or the New York Times noticed.
Yeah, well, them’s the breaks, eh? 🙂
Perhaps, I should start weeping about having dystonia on Tik-Tok? 🙂
Originally published at https://debbimackblogs.com on October 18, 2022.
