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moana
Jun 18, 2005

one of the more intellectual satire communities on the web

Blue Scream posted:

What are the reasons the industry considers it a joke?
Because authors who don't have MFAs or English degrees are making fistfuls of money while their industry slowly withers. Trad pub people would cry if they couldn't laugh at us and call us a joke. Fine with me, I'm a joke with a paid off mortgage :v:

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painted bird
Oct 18, 2013

by Lowtax
EDIT: nvm.

painted bird fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Jan 17, 2015

Pinky Artichoke
Apr 10, 2011

Dinner has blossomed.
I thought the comment was that authorearnings.com is a "joke"? I can kind of understand the bitterness, if you consider that all the people who threw up a book or two and made $7 total probably don't fill in the survey.

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

moana posted:

Fine with me, I'm a joke with a paid off mortgage :v:

I know I'm an adult when "paid off mortgage" is like the best phrase I could imagine.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
I don't own a house outright but we did take care of six figures of student loans, and that's a victory in itself (even if it might not have been the most sound move financially). In the meantime, I like my apartment (and my absolutely zero debt). Typical Millenial I guess.

moana
Jun 18, 2005

one of the more intellectual satire communities on the web

Pinky Artichoke posted:

I thought the comment was that authorearnings.com is a "joke"? I can kind of understand the bitterness, if you consider that all the people who threw up a book or two and made $7 total probably don't fill in the survey.
That's $7 they wouldn't have made trad pubbing :v:

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
It takes a go-getter to get started in any business, but I especially feel for a go-getter in this business where it's already a huge leap to have created a novel in the first place. Still, the failure rate doesn't have to be anywhere near it is with other businesses, since your expenses are typically very low.

ExtraNoise
Apr 11, 2007

moana posted:

That's $7 they wouldn't have made trad pubbing :v:

Have made $7. Can confirm.

Railing Kill
Nov 14, 2008

You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.
Just found the thread and I'm about to get into self-publishing via Amazon. I usually write sci fi, but none of it is published (yet). I have a major confidence problem that I would guess is common with yet-to-be-published authors, so I haven't taken the dive with any of my sci fi.

What I am going to publish is non fiction. Specifically, humorous essays. I've been teaching composition for seven years now, and I've been writing essays as well as teaching them all along. I was chatting with a couple friends from college who have since been published, and we got to talking about what kind of writers we are. One suggested that I would make a good essayist, but I dismissed the idea. They both said, "you've been teaching and writing essays for seven years. Maybe you're an essayist." I do find them easier to write than fiction only in that there's a lot less planning that goes into them. So, I'm going to give it a shot. It sounds weird from someone with a confidence problem to publish personal essays rather than fiction, but I am comfortable in the genre.

I have a few questions for the thread, though:

:question: Has anyone had success publishing humor and/or personal essays? I don't know if Amazon or similar avenues have a developed readership for this kind of thing, or if most of the readers are looking for genre stuff. I've poked around Amazon enough to notice they have sections for it, but I just don't know if anyone buys it.

:question: I'm down to editing now, so I'm also researching some of the technical details of publishing this kind of thing. Specifically, is there a good resource for checking attributions for real world stuff? This doesn't come up in the kind of sci fi I write, but in personal essays I'll reference names of real world stuff all over the place. I just want to make sure all my bases are covered and if there's any sort of hoops I have to jump through that will make this more trouble than it's worth.

:question: I'm looking at designing my own cover. I know, I know. But I'm pretty good with photoshop, and I want to keep my cover somewhat minimalist. What I have in mind isn't beyond my Photoshop skills, or my eye for design. I was planning on doing the photography myself to avoid a legal or financial headache, but I just want to know if anyone has had success with this. I know the horror stories described in the OP, but I'm curious if any authors can actually pull this off, or if I'm deluding myself. Bear in mind, I'm not looking for a genre-ish cover (that is way beyond my skills and eye for design). I'm looking for something minimalist but strange, like a David Sedaris book cover.

PepperSinclaire
Jan 21, 2007

But everyone's doooing it!

Railing Kill posted:

:question: Has anyone had success publishing humor and/or personal essays? I don't know if Amazon or similar avenues have a developed readership for this kind of thing, or if most of the readers are looking for genre stuff. I've poked around Amazon enough to notice they have sections for it, but I just don't know if anyone buys it.

I have one vaguely successful (sells 1 copy some months, 20 the next) non-fiction humour book out there. The best thing I can suggest is use Createspace or similar to make a print version, because you'll likely sell nothing/very little otherwise. Humour books are meant to be propped up next to the toilet so you can flick through them. I only have ebook versions for sale out of habit, but I've sold 1 ebook copy total in 1.5 years on the market, compared with around 100 physical copies (due to minimal promotion on my part).

PoshAlligator
Jan 9, 2012

When SEO just isn't enough.

Railing Kill posted:

Just found the thread and I'm about to get into self-publishing via Amazon. I usually write sci fi, but none of it is published (yet). I have a major confidence problem that I would guess is common with yet-to-be-published authors, so I haven't taken the dive with any of my sci fi.

What I am going to publish is non fiction. Specifically, humorous essays. I've been teaching composition for seven years now, and I've been writing essays as well as teaching them all along. I was chatting with a couple friends from college who have since been published, and we got to talking about what kind of writers we are. One suggested that I would make a good essayist, but I dismissed the idea. They both said, "you've been teaching and writing essays for seven years. Maybe you're an essayist." I do find them easier to write than fiction only in that there's a lot less planning that goes into them. So, I'm going to give it a shot. It sounds weird from someone with a confidence problem to publish personal essays rather than fiction, but I am comfortable in the genre.

I have a few questions for the thread, though:

:question: Has anyone had success publishing humor and/or personal essays? I don't know if Amazon or similar avenues have a developed readership for this kind of thing, or if most of the readers are looking for genre stuff. I've poked around Amazon enough to notice they have sections for it, but I just don't know if anyone buys it.

:question: I'm down to editing now, so I'm also researching some of the technical details of publishing this kind of thing. Specifically, is there a good resource for checking attributions for real world stuff? This doesn't come up in the kind of sci fi I write, but in personal essays I'll reference names of real world stuff all over the place. I just want to make sure all my bases are covered and if there's any sort of hoops I have to jump through that will make this more trouble than it's worth.

:question: I'm looking at designing my own cover. I know, I know. But I'm pretty good with photoshop, and I want to keep my cover somewhat minimalist. What I have in mind isn't beyond my Photoshop skills, or my eye for design. I was planning on doing the photography myself to avoid a legal or financial headache, but I just want to know if anyone has had success with this. I know the horror stories described in the OP, but I'm curious if any authors can actually pull this off, or if I'm deluding myself. Bear in mind, I'm not looking for a genre-ish cover (that is way beyond my skills and eye for design). I'm looking for something minimalist but strange, like a David Sedaris book cover.

Nobody seems to buy humour from unknowns. The best bet would seem to be writing something similar to another successful humour writer and really going at marketing to their audience.

ExtraNoise
Apr 11, 2007

Railing Kill posted:

:question: I'm looking at designing my own cover. I know, I know. But I'm pretty good with photoshop, and I want to keep my cover somewhat minimalist. What I have in mind isn't beyond my Photoshop skills, or my eye for design. I was planning on doing the photography myself to avoid a legal or financial headache, but I just want to know if anyone has had success with this. I know the horror stories described in the OP, but I'm curious if any authors can actually pull this off, or if I'm deluding myself. Bear in mind, I'm not looking for a genre-ish cover (that is way beyond my skills and eye for design). I'm looking for something minimalist but strange, like a David Sedaris book cover.

This has worked very well for me so far, but I come from a design background. I think as long as you have an eye for it, are willing to work with peers' critique (do you have peers to critique? We can do it in this thread, I will always be happy to offer constructive criticism if you post it), and understand basics of tension and genre (seriously, don't throw this too far out the window), you can brand your own work with something that you're happy with.

Sharing time; here are mine of the four I've published so far:







Ghostwoods
May 9, 2013

Say "Cheese!"

ExtraNoise posted:

Sharing time; here are mine of the four I've published so far:

Gorgeous.

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

Agreed, big fan of those covers.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
Just bought all four, I kinda feel that covers like that are wasted on sci fi shorts.

PoshAlligator
Jan 9, 2012

When SEO just isn't enough.
Dig the covers but it does annoy me that "Part X of Y" is in the same place for the first three and completely different for the fourth one.

But for reals ExtraNoise you could charge for those easy.

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005

Pinky Artichoke posted:

I thought the comment was that authorearnings.com is a "joke"? I can kind of understand the bitterness, if you consider that all the people who threw up a book or two and made $7 total probably don't fill in the survey.

AuthorEarnings is a joke in the sense that, statistically, the data-set is not robust and relies on a bunch of assumptions at any given time when they make the reports. Treat it more as a broad overview / "here's the gist" sort of thing rather than a reliable source of numbers / breakdowns. It's is broadly applicable and highly accurate, but it's not very precise. :) Don't decide whether Mystery or Romance is a better genre from it based on numbers, for example, but instead read it as saying that those two are waaaaaaay more popular than other genres and accept self-pubbers openly. That sort of thing.

That being said, the general point is still accurate. The average author will make more by self-publishing than by going the traditional route for genre fiction at least. I make no comment on non-fic as all of my non-fiction is in the loving caring overbearing, stifling ownership of Elsevier.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
Oh yeah I can definitely agree with criticisms of the data in general, especially the fact that the data is essentially cherry picked to be from a very brief snapshot versus something like annual figures. Amazon doesn't publish anywhere near the data to do a true analysis but I think we can agree this is a better system than just trusting anecdotes from self publishers or trad publishers.

The data seems more natural to me since I track sales via Sales Rank Express, unlike most people who use the KDP Dashboard.

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005
Oh, completely agreed there -- the data is still extremely valuable thanks to Amazon reporting next to nothing for us to work with, and I'd take it over some lovely news article any day. I'm just advising people not to treat it as the be-all, end-all answer to everything. Instead, read it in broad strokes and learn the major points without worrying about whether self-pub really holds 42% of the market share in Genre X or 38%. Just know that, as a self-pubber, your readers will totally give your work a shot and there are millions of them. Just my opinion there, though.

On the topic of sales, I'm trying to stop tracking them apart from the first month of a new major release (and more by rank / A-Bs at that). It induces insanity, and also my F5 key can't take much more. I'm trying to be more hands-off / not micromanage everything quite as much, instead just going with the flow and churning out books. I spend all day micromanaging idiotic crap, so the last thing I want to do when I come home is more of the same. Let me write something creative instead. :D

Mr. Belding
May 19, 2006
^
|
<- IS LAME-O PHOBE ->
|
V

Sundae posted:

Oh, completely agreed there -- the data is still extremely valuable thanks to Amazon reporting next to nothing for us to work with, and I'd take it over some lovely news article any day. I'm just advising people not to treat it as the be-all, end-all answer to everything. Instead, read it in broad strokes and learn the major points without worrying about whether self-pub really holds 42% of the market share in Genre X or 38%. Just know that, as a self-pubber, your readers will totally give your work a shot and there are millions of them. Just my opinion there, though.

On the topic of sales, I'm trying to stop tracking them apart from the first month of a new major release (and more by rank / A-Bs at that). It induces insanity, and also my F5 key can't take much more. I'm trying to be more hands-off / not micromanage everything quite as much, instead just going with the flow and churning out books. I spend all day micromanaging idiotic crap, so the last thing I want to do when I come home is more of the same. Let me write something creative instead. :D

On a scale of now to never, how close are you to quitting the day job?

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005

Mr. Belding posted:

On a scale of now to never, how close are you to quitting the day job?

I am another $46K of my wife's student loans plus building a "my next two books sucked balls" safety buffer away from quitting, so honestly, probably somewhere between DEC2015 and JUL2016 assuming I'll encounter one unexpected (expensive) surprise along the way. I intended to be completely done and and ready to go self-employed at latest by December, but TL;DR: medical bills my insurance refused to cover. (Hard to build up a sufficient reserve when you've just been charged $13,000, you know?)

I'm so close to being free that it's starting to drive me batty. :v:

Railing Kill
Nov 14, 2008

You are the first crack in the sheer face of god. From you it will spread.

PepperSinclaire posted:

I have one vaguely successful (sells 1 copy some months, 20 the next) non-fiction humour book out there. The best thing I can suggest is use Createspace or similar to make a print version, because you'll likely sell nothing/very little otherwise. Humour books are meant to be propped up next to the toilet so you can flick through them. I only have ebook versions for sale out of habit, but I've sold 1 ebook copy total in 1.5 years on the market, compared with around 100 physical copies (due to minimal promotion on my part).

This is great to know. Since I haven't published anything yet, I'm new to both ebook and print publishing through Amazon. Given this, I might explore more about the print option. I had initially assumed I'd just go with the ebook route since that seemed fairly no-nonsense, but that's why I'm doing research now before I jump into this. Thanks for the info.

PoshAlligator posted:

Nobody seems to buy humour from unknowns. The best bet would seem to be writing something similar to another successful humour writer and really going at marketing to their audience.

That's good to know. I've been more and more conscious of some essayists that have influenced my writing as I've been working through this process, and I may be able to find ways to lean on that in how I market the book. We'll see what happens, but I have some ideas for that.

ExtraNoise posted:

Awesome cover designs

Seconding that these covers are great. I hope mine turns out that well, but we'll have to see about that, too. I've been working with a few folks in an editorial exchange, and some of them will probably be willing to give the cover a look. I'll probably share it here as well once it's done. I'll keep the thread posted (no pun intended).

Thanks for the tips so far, everyone.

ExtraNoise
Apr 11, 2007

EngineerSean posted:

Just bought all four, I kinda feel that covers like that are wasted on sci fi shorts.

Thanks so much for this. And I agree: If there's one thing I've taken away from this thread it's that I need to sit down and hammer out a novel ASAP. I'm going to wrap up part five in the series (almost done) and then get to work on something bigger. You've inspired me!

And thanks for the kind words everyone.

Trustworthy
Dec 28, 2004

with catte-like thread
upon our prey we steal

ExtraNoise posted:

Thanks so much for this. And I agree: If there's one thing I've taken away from this thread it's that I need to sit down and hammer out a novel ASAP. I'm going to wrap up part five in the series (almost done) and then get to work on something bigger. You've inspired me!

And thanks for the kind words everyone.

I hope you're planning to release a really slick-looking boxed set when you're finished. I doubt it would push you up into the promised land of phat novelbux, but it couldn't hurt!

ex post facho
Oct 25, 2007
Thanks to getting shown the basics by Moana, I'm planning on writing a 3-part collection of...novellas? I guess you'd call them of about 10,000 words each, which I think would be a great starter project and (hopefully!) become a lucrative path forward to bigger and better works.

Thanks Moana!

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Has anybody had experience with booktrope.com? Looks like a great solution for self-pub+ options. (like, you WANNA self publish, but would benefit from people who can help you).

http://booktrope.com/

They're currently accepting submissions, which apparently is not an "always open" thing. I just submitted my MS, (which I plan to self-pub next month), to see if they can help me.

Which leads me to an update about a previous note about my book's status: I'd decided to go with a local publisher who would help me self-publish for a fee... but after losing my job, that fee was something that had to wait. And now, a couple of months farther away from the initial OMG! moment, I'm back to looking into doing everything myself.

magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Jan 20, 2015

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011


Apparently BookTrope publishes 3 books a second.

Blue Scream
Oct 24, 2006

oh my word, the internet!
Jeez, apparently all kinds of these services are popping up. I just got an email from Go On, Write promoting screwpulp.com.

From their site:

quote:

How Screwpulp works

At Screwpulp, we publish everybody. By giving away the initial copies of the book for free, in exchange for a mention on social media and a star rating, we quickly get your book into the hands of readers. This builds a fan base for the author quickly and this exchange creates buzz around your work. As demand for the book goes up so does the price in one dollar increments. Now new readers have a rating system to show the quality of the work before anyone buys it. Authors keep all of the rights to their works and retain 75 percent of the profit. The only thing we ask of the author is to keep their book on Screwpulp for a minimum of ninety days. We are partnering with different organizations to help authors with cover design, editing and formatting. We will unveil more tools over time.

From mashable:

quote:

Screwpulp launched last year to help independent authors get their books in front of readers and the site now has 70 books from 55 authors, and just raised its first round of funding. The site allows authors to list their books as a free download in all major ereader formats, and readers that download a free book must review it before downloading another free book. This engagement loop forces honest feedback to the author, which Screwpulp co-founder Richard Billings says not only helps curate books for readers but could inform writers.

Curious to see what experienced self-pubbers here think of this model.

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005

Blue Scream posted:

Jeez, apparently all kinds of these services are popping up. I just got an email from Go On, Write promoting screwpulp.com.

Curious to see what experienced self-pubbers here think of this model.

I'm working on a Romance-specific review site right now, though I'm specifying that they must provide the reviews on (author's sale site of choice) and Goodreads. Anything that gathers useful reviews is worthwhile.


That being said, I would never PUBLISH through something like that. About the only one I'd trust is PubYourselfPress, and only because I know the people involved have a track record of success. Anyone else is offering minimal value compared to just hiring a cover designer and paying cash, pubbing it yourself.

quote:

The only thing we ask of the author is to keep their book on Screwpulp for a minimum of ninety days.

So basically, they're putting it in Kindle Select. Woohoo?

Hijinks Ensue
Jul 24, 2007
Just scored an Ereader News Today Book of the Day spot for next month!

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005
Nice! They've paid out really well whenever I've used them, so congrats!

psychopomp
Jan 28, 2011
Latest release is doing well. Apple picked up the first in its series for a promotion last month, leading to ~6k free downloads, and that has had a good iBooks conversion rate to the next. Not great, but good.

Kobo is going to be doing something to promote the latest book this Friday.

They contacted me in both cases, so I don't have any really special advice on how to get support from either. Kobo is more prone to promoting higher price points, according to this article.

It's been a good start to the year, though I sent out an email newsletter with a big stupid typo right in the headline, so I'm sort of kicking myself for missing that.

Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

Sundae posted:

I intended to be completely done and and ready to go self-employed at latest by December, but TL;DR: medical bills my insurance refused to cover. (Hard to build up a sufficient reserve when you've just been charged $13,000, you know?)

I'm so close to being free that it's starting to drive me batty. :v:
Jesus, that sucks. Hopefully something big comes along. I can sympathise with that goal being just out of reach. Right now I feel like I'm working 9-5 and seeing nothing yet except a crawling increase in my sales / borrows on Amazon. It's been hard getting my head back into it after Christmas, but I feel like I'm starting to get there.

My situation is different though, since i'm already at zero so I kind of have nothing to lose. It's got to be scary operating without a safety net though, so probably best to wait until you're sure. Must be tempting though every time you have a bad day at work to make the switch early...

Fanky Malloons
Aug 21, 2010

Is your social worker inside that horse?

Blue Scream posted:

screwpulp.com

If nothing else, it really bothers me that it's very easy to misread their name as screwup.com. Or is that just me?

Yooper
Apr 30, 2012


Here's the new cover. It's by our esteemed ravenkult. Seriously, go buy his poo poo and don't make your own lovely cover unless you really know what you're doing.

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug
:drat: That's one sweet cover. I can't wait until I'm at that stage!

ExtraNoise
Apr 11, 2007

Great stuff! Thanks for sharing the final outcome.

Babby Sathanas
May 16, 2006

bearbating is now adorable

Yooper posted:

Here's the new cover. It's by our esteemed ravenkult. Seriously, go buy his poo poo and don't make your own lovely cover unless you really know what you're doing.



Wanna buy this book.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
25% of your book's revenue for some guaranteed reviews? Or not even really guaranteed, just encouraged? Me and my mother will both review your book and I'll only take 20%. Race to the bottom here.

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PoshAlligator
Jan 9, 2012

When SEO just isn't enough.

EngineerSean posted:

25% of your book's revenue for some guaranteed reviews? Or not even really guaranteed, just encouraged? Me and my mother will both review your book and I'll only take 20%. Race to the bottom here.

Please PM me your mother's contact details.

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