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brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

angel opportunity posted:

My mom wants to read my novella, and I really don't want her to...

Gross

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Jalumibnkrayal
Apr 16, 2008

Ramrod XTreme

angel opportunity posted:

My mom wants to read my novella, and I really don't want her to...

Just cut out the sex parts and replace them with cuddling or longful gazing at one another.

Hijinks Ensue
Jul 24, 2007
Reminds me of when I sent one of my suspense novels to my step-grandmother. As soon as it was mailed off, I thought to myself, "I probably shouldn't have used the word 'cocksucker.'" If she was offended, she didn't mention it to me.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
Your mom just wants to tell you that she's proud of you.

Your dad... well this is just evidence that your dad was right all along.

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Hi. I know I have blown chipmunk rear end on my book promotion/publisher experience, and I've been quiet, posting less/lurking more. And I also said I'd provide updates as my journey through this experience goes on.

This week, my book is free for Kindle on amazon. It's a huge promotion the quasi-publisher is doing for over 200 of their authors. The books in this promotion are being promoted on bookbub and other places as well. (I mention bookbub because I first heard about it in this thread).

I know I irritated the poo poo out of a lot of you, and I appreciate everybody's feedback over the past year, despite what you might think.

So, here. Here's the book that this thread helped me bring to life. Thanks everybody who helped. Go get a free copy this week.

link to SNAPSHOT


EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
Well it seems like they at least listened to you a little bit. It's in Kindle Unlimited now (pretty sure it wasn't before) and the regular price is $2.99. I picked up a free copy, hope you get some royalties!

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
I grabbed the free copy. I can't remember what free store rankings are good, but notice that you're #1,588 in the free store now. That is so much better exposure than being rank one-million in the paid store! Good job!

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug
Nice! I snapped up the KU edition. Glad to see your rank is improving.

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER

angel opportunity posted:

I grabbed the free copy. I can't remember what free store rankings are good, but notice that you're #1,588 in the free store now. That is so much better exposure than being rank one-million in the paid store! Good job!
#61 in free horror!

newtestleper
Oct 30, 2003

Are you on amazon.co.uk? my amazon account is there and I couldn't find your book.

Edit: Found it - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B015QH2U0E?keywords=Beau%20Hall&qid=1447200248&ref_=sr_1_1&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

newtestleper fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Nov 11, 2015

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
I just hit the publish button on my first romance (first non-erotica). I'm super psyched!

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005
Send me the link as soon as it's live. :) I have a bunch of readers asking where to leave their reviews. :D

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
awesome :D

I submitted it this early because it's a brand new pen name on a brand new KDP account...I'm worried that will cause some form of snag or some poo poo, but if not it should be live tomorrow and I'll give you the link ASAP. I WANT MY REVIEWS!

If the average review is 4.0 or greater I will link the book to my mom

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
if they accepted your tax info then it should go through lickety split, good luck with it!

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Alright so tell me about how to whore it on goodreads.com. Anybody have experience with that?

Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

Is goodreads trolling still a thing? A while ago I read an article about how a massive chunk of the community had become destructive, randomly badmouthing and downvoting books because they noticed the author posting on their forums and didn't like them or something.

For what it's worth, I listed my smut on there and managed to get a few reviews and encouraged one to post it to Amazon.

POOL IS CLOSED
Jul 14, 2011

I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.
Pillbug

Bobby Deluxe posted:

Is goodreads trolling still a thing?

I'm not really sure! That whole drama seems to have many parts. Review trolling is still a thing, period, but as for GR being an extremely bad example right now... Seems to depend on who you ask.

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

RedTonic posted:

I'm not really sure! That whole drama seems to have many parts. Review trolling is still a thing, period, but as for GR being an extremely bad example right now... Seems to depend on who you ask.

Just throwing this out there, my experience with Goodreads has been pretty positive. Back when I didn't have a mailing list, I used to cold message people that liked romance offering them an ARC for a review. Got some responses that way. Then the next book I'd message those same people, plus more randoms, and so on. People that don't respond I never message again. All in all, I'd say the reviews on Goodreads tend to be harsher, but not that much harsher. Especially if you find people that actively read and review ARCs for authors. Plus, and someone on this thread may have given me this idea, you can basically 'forget' to remind the people that left you a bad review to leave their review on Amazon. I try and get reviews up on GR before I put up the Amazon page, and so far that works pretty well.

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER

brotherly posted:

Just throwing this out there, my experience with Goodreads has been pretty positive. Back when I didn't have a mailing list, I used to cold message people that liked romance offering them an ARC for a review. Got some responses that way. Then the next book I'd message those same people, plus more randoms, and so on. People that don't respond I never message again. All in all, I'd say the reviews on Goodreads tend to be harsher, but not that much harsher. Especially if you find people that actively read and review ARCs for authors. Plus, and someone on this thread may have given me this idea, you can basically 'forget' to remind the people that left you a bad review to leave their review on Amazon. I try and get reviews up on GR before I put up the Amazon page, and so far that works pretty well.

Great input. Thanks.

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005
Also, you can view the general review breakdown of anyone who requests the book and then conveniently forget to send it to the ones who are super-critical, in favor of giving it to people who rate 99% of everything 5-stars. :haw:

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
I don't often post industry articles but I was listening to a podcast and this part jumped out at me:

http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2015/09/21/dont-go-exclusive-build-a-long-term-career-as-an-author-on-multiple-platforms-with-liliana-hart/

quote:

Liliana: Basically. And so you see that. And it’s like all these stumbling blocks get in the way. There are always going to be stumbling blocks, there’s always going to be a KU, there’s always going to be the New York Times list shrinking. There’s always going to be a VAT tax. There’s always going to be royalty chains like ACX. There’s always going to be something.

The people that are successful at what they do in this business are the people look at that and then figure out a way around it.

They’ll figure out a way to where they’re still making money, and they still have a career, and they’re still producing books, and they’re still able to live off what they do. Those are not going to be the people that you’re hearing the sky is falling, and it’s all over, and I’ve got to jump in exclusive now, or I’m going to lose my whole career. You will never hear those people that are successful saying those things. They’re going to keep their head down and they’re going to move around it.

First of all I don't necessarily agree with the page title ("Don't Go Exclusive...") but the part that I quoted is absolutely true and I wanted to pass it on to anyone feeling down about the current state of the industry.

Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

Just got an email from D2D to say they're starting their own email lists.

quote:

Building a mailing list is one of the most important things a self-published author can do to turn initial success into a real career. Discovery is the biggest challenge for any writer, but once you've been discovered, it's critical to keep that new fan engaged.

Mailing lists are the most logical method for securing that relationship. If you can get your fans to sign up for your list, you'll be able to contact them directly when you have important news for them.

Getting started can be tricky, though. Mailing lists are time consuming and, if successful, have the real potential to become expensive. But just like formatting and distribution, Draft2Digital is working to solve that problem for you.

Starting immediately, you can simply check a box and we'll drop a page into the back of your book that directs readers to a signup. After that, whenever you release a book, our new wholly-owned affiliate Books2Read will send out an email letting your loyal readers know they need to make a purchase.

Take a look at our blog post for more details and some ideas on how you might put the New Release Notifications to work right away. In the meantime, enjoy the ability to email your readers for every new release and watch the sales bump.

Sincerely,

Kris Austin
CEO
Draft2Digital

So if i've understood it correctly; its an op-in service where they add the link automatically, they manage the list, they autoformat a link to a new book as soon as it comes out and send it to your subscribers. For free.

I'm hoping this is the beginning of Amazon's competitors waking the gently caress up.

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011


It ain't bad, but do you have any control over the list and such? What if you want to send an actual email out that says that a book is on sale or something like that? Or if you want to offer an ARC?

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot

ravenkult posted:

It ain't bad, but do you have any control over the list and such? What if you want to send an actual email out that says that a book is on sale or something like that? Or if you want to offer an ARC?

I'm no mouthpiece for Draft2Digital especially since I'm mostly Amazon-exclusive but they really really want to work with authors. I don't want to post it publicly in the forum here but if you can get the address for Joshua Unruh I bet he would work with you on literally all of that.

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

EngineerSean posted:

First of all I don't necessarily agree with the page title ("Don't Go Exclusive...") but the part that I quoted is absolutely true and I wanted to pass it on to anyone feeling down about the current state of the industry.

I agree with all that, but also, what about erotica? That seems like an example where the 'sky is falling' mentality may actually be correct.

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
I think you could still make money with erotica, but it would be a huge grind. My interpretation of that though is in this case "moving around" would be going from erotica to romance.

Instead of saying "poo poo! Erotica is what I write and it's all I can write, it's over!" you say, "I guess I'm going to write romance now."

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005

EngineerSean posted:

I'm no mouthpiece for Draft2Digital especially since I'm mostly Amazon-exclusive but they really really want to work with authors. I don't want to post it publicly in the forum here but if you can get the address for Joshua Unruh I bet he would work with you on literally all of that.

I can agree with this. I hardly use D2D anymore since most of my stuff is Amazon, but D2D have never been anything but awesome to me.

ArchangeI
Jul 15, 2010
Just out of curiosity, for the people with very active mailing lists, how often do you send out mails, and what do you write in them? Whenever I think about getting one, I can't help but think that it wouldn't do much for me because it'd be one mail (New Book is out! Buy it!) followed by several months of silence, so that anyone who signs up probably doesn't even remember who I am when the next book is out. Now, obviously, write moar is the answer here, as always, but for the people who have longer production cycles - do you write in links for other people's books? Status updates? Gardening tips?

Popular Human
Jul 17, 2005

and if it's a lie, terrorists made me say it

EngineerSean posted:

I don't often post industry articles but I was listening to a podcast and this part jumped out at me:

http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2015/09/21/dont-go-exclusive-build-a-long-term-career-as-an-author-on-multiple-platforms-with-liliana-hart/


First of all I don't necessarily agree with the page title ("Don't Go Exclusive...") but the part that I quoted is absolutely true and I wanted to pass it on to anyone feeling down about the current state of the industry.

Thanks Sean. That was awesome.

I gotta say, maybe I'm incredibly lucky but I'm not feeling all the negativity around here. I'm on track to make my previously stated range of sales this month. The friend I mentioned who I got into this (and while she's good at writing knew practically nothing about writing/marketing erotica in a way that would make people want to read it) just cracked $2k in sales last month, and she's freaking out b/c that's a life-changing amount of money for her.

Is it a grind? Yeah. Should I be heavily weighting the pros and cons of moving into 25k-word romance serials? Probably. But this is the easiest, most fun money I've ever made. A few months ago I was freaking out with joy because I was averaging ten sales a day, and that $600 was worth it to me. I honestly enjoy doing this weird, weird thing and love that its helping me get out of debt, plan our next vacation, etc - but I haven't quit my lovely call center day job. The days of writing two stories a month to bolster your catalog and pulling down six-figures are probably over, but anyone who tells you there's no money to be made in erotica hasn't approached the market from the right angle, or with the proper knuckle-dragging stubbornness, or they just hate writing about people loving and the people reading their stories can tell.

Here's my last six months, distilled into two pieces of advice for anyone thinking of starting out:

1) Write in a bunch of different genres and niches; then look at your also-boughts. What authors keep showing up, which ones are making way more money in similar genres? Research them, look at their content and presentation, and here's a crazy idea: BUY some of their poo poo and read it. Then emulate them - do what they do, but better. DON'T copy them (nothing will kill your self-pubbing career faster or harder than provable plagiarism): I'm talking about like reading Fifty Shades of Gray then turning around and writing Sylvia Day's 'Crossfire' trilogy - something similar, but better. If, by the grace of the smut gods, you start outselling this person, go back to the drawing board and find someone who's outselling the new you. I'm on my third so far.

2) WRITE MORE. How much have you written today? Show me your word count...oh, no. No. You think this is acceptable? No, you need to double that. At least. Come on, don't be loving lazy. I know you can write way more than that. And how many days has it been since you've published a new story? Oh, no no no. You're wasting daylight, son. Get it done, get to the next one, and get to the one after that. This is supposed to be loving fun!

TheForgotton
Jun 10, 2001

I'm making a career of evil.

magnificent7 posted:

This week, my book is free for Kindle on amazon. It's a huge promotion the quasi-publisher is doing for over 200 of their authors. The books in this promotion are being promoted on bookbub and other places as well. (I mention bookbub because I first heard about it in this thread).

link to SNAPSHOT



Thanks for the freebie!

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER

TheForgotton posted:

Thanks for the freebie!
I'm up to #36 in Free Kindle Horror. drat!

In another wild-shotgun-into-the-air stab at marketing, I made a video. gently caress book trailers, apparently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjFRFtxgKig

Next week, I'll just make a five hour video of me reading the entire thing.

Sundae
Dec 1, 2005
Reports are out early. $0.00481.

:v: :suicide: :v:

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
mag7...I love video!

It's doing sort of kind of well I think. I don't really know with romance yet!

Today it went on free promo and I did BKnight and Excitespice Friday feature. So that was like $25 and I got 1200 downloads so far. I also got some twitter plugs from people I know off-site.

Sundae's service netted me I think like ~15 reviews so far, which rules, and my ARC list got me like 5. One of which loved my book, but gave it a "2.75" rating due to "too much shifting," and he pressed the two star button. So I'm currently sitting at 3.9 average rating.

I had some typing errors that hurt otherwise good reviews (stuff that doesn't show up in spell check type errors) so I'm hiring an editor for the next book.

Currently I'm 458 in free store, which isn't really "good enough," so I'm hoping it goes closer toward 100 if possible...

With nearly 20 good reviews, I've submitted to the picky romance ad places that charge anywhere from $10-$80 for an ad. I'm hoping at least two of them accept my book.

edit: rank just spiked...sick

angel opportunity fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Nov 14, 2015

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart
mag7 you did that video all on your own right? no one from booktrope helped with it?

you're really good at self-promo...just do this poo poo on your own next time for better results!

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER
I did it all yeah. A lot of other BT authors and editors are sharing it, but even that... I still wonder what's the value to reaching other writers versus readers
.
I'm poking around goodreads trying to find my way to readers.

In my experience as a band leader for example, my poo poo caught on* once I stopped dragging other musicians to the gigs, and focused on bar flies and music fans.

* I started selling music and had a fan base. And making tens of dollars.

EngineerSean
Feb 9, 2004

by zen death robot
I loved the video, how much will you charge me to sign and ship me a copy? I'd of course expect a personal message like "gently caress you and die Sean"

or: I hope you choke on this book!!!

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER

EngineerSean posted:

I loved the video, how much will you charge me to sign and ship me a copy? I'd of course expect a personal message like "gently caress you and die Sean"

or: I hope you choke on this book!!!
If the postal service will ship a book with feces smeared between the pages, I'll ship it to you free of charge.

Or sure, just PM your address and I'll sign it, use my sharpie to spoiler the last ten pages and mail it to you.

Aaronicon
Oct 2, 2010

A BLOO BLOO ANYONE I DISAGREE WITH IS A "BAD PERSON" WHO DESERVES TO DIE PLEEEASE DONT FALL ALL OVER YOURSELF WHITEWASHING THEM A BLOO BLOO

magnificent7 posted:

If the postal service will ship a book with feces smeared between the pages, I'll ship it to you free of charge.

Or sure, just PM your address and I'll sign it, use my sharpie to spoiler the last ten pages and mail it to you.

So long as it's properly marked and sealed, then the US postal service will indeed post literal poo poo wherever you want from inside the US.

:nexus:

brotherly
Aug 20, 2014

DEHUMANIZE YOURSELF AND FACE TO BLOODSHED

magnificent7 posted:

If the postal service will ship a book with feces smeared between the pages, I'll ship it to you free of charge.

Or sure, just PM your address and I'll sign it, use my sharpie to spoiler the last ten pages and mail it to you.

That was a really good video, good job! Made me want to buy your book (downloaded it for free).

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magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER

brotherly posted:

That was a really good video, good job! Made me want to buy your book (downloaded it for free).
THIS has made my day. Thank you!

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