Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Bardeh
Dec 2, 2004

Fun Shoe
I mean, if your friend is insistent his cover is good and on trend, why does he think nobody wanted to borrow his book? There are plenty of cozy mysteries enrolled in KU getting a lot of page reads, so there must be something different about his.

(its the cover)

(it's bad)

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Exmond
May 31, 2007

Writing is fun!

Bardeh posted:

This:



is just a bad cover. It would be bad in any genre. It looks like he threw it together in 20 minutes.

Err, I don't self-publish, but I do read a bunch.

If I was browsing Amazon and saw that cover, I would just gloss over it and not give it the time of day.

KrunkMcGrunk
Jul 2, 2007

Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.

divabot posted:

He insists the cover is right for the genre - I didn't believe it either, but looking at others in "cosy mystery" I can almost believe it - and it did sell actual copies on Kindle - just KU was terrible. The sequel also came out and did reasonably well. Basically he puts out something every two or three months and has a long back catalogue.

Oh, okay. I see his sequel now. Well, he certainly did right by getting it out 3 months after the first book. Honestly, I think if he gets better covers and re-writes his blurbs, he'd do okay.

Not to hit your friend too hard, but, to my eyes, neither cover looks at all like a cozy mystery cover. Is he looking at the UK Amazon store or something? Most cozy mysteries have covers like this...


KrunkMcGrunk fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Apr 19, 2018

KrunkMcGrunk
Jul 2, 2007

Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.

So, uh, who else has been following Cockygate? Did anyone see Faleena Hopkins' drunk facebook video she made addressing her "cyber bullies".

It's worthy of GBS.

divabot
Jun 17, 2015

A polite little mouse!
Question: Has anyone who's previously used CreateSpace tried the current iteration of Kindle Print? I'm assuming the actual books are the same (and actually printed by Ingram, lol) - but what's everything else like? Interacting with the system, countries it's available in, how much money you get, etc?

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

I'm looking into this now because I'm going to start doing print books soon, and one opinion I keep running into is that Amazon will probably force everyone from Createspace onto KDP sooner or later anyway, so you may as well get it over and done with.

Blorknorg
Jul 19, 2003
Crush me like a Blorknorg!

freebooter posted:

I'm looking into this now because I'm going to start doing print books soon, and one opinion I keep running into is that Amazon will probably force everyone from Createspace onto KDP sooner or later anyway, so you may as well get it over and done with.

The problem is there just isn't any 'plus' to KDP. You lose the extra distribution options, your book is available in fewer regions, and you have no option to buy cheap copies or even get a proof copy to make sure the end product isn't hosed. Just because it's inevitable doesn't mean it's worth embracing.

divabot
Jun 17, 2015

A polite little mouse!

Blorknorg posted:

The problem is there just isn't any 'plus' to KDP. You lose the extra distribution options, your book is available in fewer regions, and you have no option to buy cheap copies or even get a proof copy to make sure the end product isn't hosed. Just because it's inevitable doesn't mean it's worth embracing.

I believe they now do proof copies and cheap copies. Pretty sure the rest is still the case though.

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

What are the regions they serve? I assume the US, which is where 95% of my ebook revenue comes from anyway, so I wouldn't be too fussed about a few bucks from the UK or whatever.

BBQ Dave
Jun 17, 2012

Well, that's easy for you to say. You have a bad imagination. It's stupid. I live in a fantasy world.

Hey all been lurking for a while. I have a book I wanna get out on KDP. It’s a supernatural horror tale, 75 k words, aimed at Lovecraft and Jim Butcher fans. First person set in a semi rural make believe county.

I tried to do comedy and horror, yeah I know it rarely works but what the hell right?

I’ve edited the crap out of it (oh sweet baby j it’s been done for two years), and a PhD English candidate, (for whatever that’s worth) says it’s readable and grammatically correct.

I have a cover. Splurged on a demonza (thanks OP good recommendation ) cover back in more economically stable times.

I’m planing on using vellum.

Times are pretty stressful for me and have been for a couple years. Not gonna go into detail but I have zero free time between some intense caregiving and a 60 hour a week job. We’ve all got our excuses until we don’t and that’s mine.

Suddenly I have two free days with no work and no responsibilities. Hopefully I won’t get called in...

I don’t believe this will turn things around for me economically, I just really need to have it done and out there.

Questions:

Can I get it out in that amount of time?

Can anyone recommend a to do list? Something straightforward? I’m googling...

Any tips on pitfalls to avoid, just off the top of your heads? Tags? Genres to list under?

How important is it to have a Twitter/website/whatever the hell people have to have to be taken somewhat seriously?

What should I sell it for? $2.99? Audacious? I’m concerned about the price point mainly because of public perception reasons.

Last question, how critical is this first release? I can change everything around later right?

This post makes me feel like a total dweeb who should be doing his own figuring out but that attitude hasn’t served me well.

Any advice would be welcome and appreciated. Hitting the sack now. Gonna try tomorrow.

Thanks. Here’s the cover:
https://imgur.com/a/q2TTWu3

Faded Mars
Jul 1, 2004

It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga.

BBQ Dave posted:

Book launch

Congrats on getting a book ready to launch, first off.

You have an edited ms and a professional cover, so that's pretty awesome. Your next step is an awesome blurb. From my own experience, as well as what I've seen and learned from others, is that most readers are going to buy based 1) On your cover and 2) On your blurb. So get something nailed down.

How? Here's a bestselling (romance) author on blurb writing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVPkeQdMKJs

Follow that and then post what you come up with in this thread for critique. There are also indie author Facebook groups that serve the same purpose.

Price? For a full length, standalone novel, I'm going to recommend $3.99. It's a pretty standard price for an indie novel. Pricing low (like $0.99) on books that aren't the first in a series is often viewed as a lack of confidence in the book by readers. But like I said, there are exceptions. First in series, promotions, that sort of thing.


Your next task is figuring out if you want to put the book in KU (Amazon's Kindle Unlimited or KDP Select for those using the author dashboard) or go wide, ie releasing to Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, etc. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. The 'zon still has far and away the largest share of the market, and a book in KU gets both search ranking privileges and access to Amazon's promotion tools, which include countdown deals and free runs. I would personally lean towards KU myself, but it's up to you.

Keywords are an interesting beast. On Amazon at least, keywords are both search terms and ways to get into book categories that aren't available on the publisher dropdown menu. There are official lists of these keywords, just type in "KDP horror keywords" or something into Google and Amazon's lists should appear. You can also go look at books similar to yours and see what categories they are in. If there is no official keyword to enter or category to select, after your book is available you can email KDP support and ask them to put the book in the category. I believe you can have a total of 10 categories for a single title.

There are also many tools to use to find marketable keywords. Kindle Samurai, KDP Rocket, etc. Though you can also find stuff by just typing up things you think a potential customer might search and see what the suggestions are on Amazon.

As far as author presence, something is nice. Even just a blogspot site and a Facebook fan page you can link readers to in your Author Central profile and the back of your book. Now is also the time to start up a mailing list through something like Mailchimp. Get that set up and put a subscription link in the back of your book. There are so many ways of getting subscribers I don't really think I can go into it much here.

You may also want to look into some marketing. It doesn't have to be anything crazy. Many people have found amazing success simply using Amazon and Facebook ads.

I would also like to say that if you have more books in you, you may want to actually hold off on publishing this title. If you're looking to make a serious go of this indie author thing, "rapid release" is a proven strategy for success. What's that? Having three or even more books ready to go, and publishing them in quick succession. How quick? Current wisdom suggests approximately every 1-2 weeks. This works much better if your books are in a series. Can this book you've written be the first in a series, or is it standalone only?

The indie publishing rabbit hole goes as deep as you're willing to delve, and then some.

I'd really recommend getting into a couple of author communities. There's a lot of experience and wisdom in some of them. My personal recommendations are 20Booksto50K and Indie Cover Project, both on Facebook. Just type them into the search bar.

I know this post probably raises more questions than answers, but I hope it was also at least a little helpful.

Faded Mars fucked around with this message at 15:07 on May 21, 2018

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

That's all great advice. I'd absolutely second doing solid work on the blurb. The most important advice I ever got from this thread was that your blurb and cover matter as much as your book.

I think one of the most important things for an early book is to get reviews. Even having a couple of star ratings is better than a book which just has that ugly 0 sitting next to it. (Your cover kicks rear end though which will help.) Now, it's technically against the Amazon TOS but I think most people get friends or relatives to leave a couple of reviews - just because, again, having one or two is better than none.

So what I'd add to do next - maybe a few weeks or a month after your release - is to make the book free for a few days and heavily promote that on the various mailing newsletters you can buy ads in. You can find a decent list here - https://kindlepreneur.com/list-sites-promote-free-amazon-books/. Not all of them are reputable as the others, use your gut feeling. (This is the most time consuming bit of marketing, for me.) No harm in using all the free ones, though, just throw it all at the wall and see what sticks. The more you are paying for the service the better it's likely to be (Bookbub obviously being the holy grail) but that's only a rule of thumb. I've always found it impossible to measure ROI because you can't actually tell where people are coming from. But anyway: depending on your budget, I reckon it's worth spending a couple hundred bucks on a free promotion period. Does this eat into your own sales? Yes. Is that worth doing to get reviews and climb up the Amazon rankings? Also yes. I had absolutely no idea these mailing lists existed before I self pubbed but they have, far and away, been my biggest tool in promoting my books.

The other piece of advice I'd give is that I've been in your shoes and I know what it's like to feel nervous about pulling the trigger. It's something you've worked on for a long time and you hear all these great stories about self pubbing and you're worried that you'll be one of the books that just sinks like a stone. But I think that only really happens to people who don't bother to put in the time and effort to do it properly, which is obviously not you. I went into it hoping I'd make back the $110 I spent on a cover and the $150 or so I spent on marketing, and if I broke even I'd be happy. 18 months later and that book's cracked nearly $3,500 - and it spent most of that time at 99c as a hook to the rest of the series, from which I only get 33c. If you price at $2.99, which you probably should with a standalone book and a cover that good, you get $2.00 a sale. People say it's harder to make good money self pubbing now, which is probably true (I mean $3,500 over 18 months isn't exactly good money) but I'm still just chuffed I make any money at all out of something that's always been a hobby.

Anyway, yeah, my point is - don't sweat it all too much. Just write a good blurb, do some basic marketing and get it out there. Then start writing your next book.

BBQ Dave
Jun 17, 2012

Well, that's easy for you to say. You have a bad imagination. It's stupid. I live in a fantasy world.

Faded Mars posted:

lots of good stuff

Okay first two paragrraph on intro, then hint, then cliffy. Here we go:

There is a saying in the tiny mountain town of Wyrdenville, Carcosa County, State of Jefferson (established 1960 CE, North of California, South of Oregon), “If you weren’t born here, you must be on the run from something.”

Ask the ten locals about newcomer Milo Edgewood you’ll get ten different answers. He’s the museum manager. That’s the guy who wears suits. That smug Californian. That well-meaning fool. That suspicious widower. Wyrdenville was supposed to be a place for Milo to start over, live small, away from the smoldering remains of his old life. No more insanity.

But sometimes insanity comes calling.

Something old and powerful is stirring in the woods just beyond the lights of town. It begins reaching out for Milo when a woman steps out of his past, forcing him to choose between his new home and old obligations. Lines are being drawn in a conflict many strange eons in the making, and Milo will be forced to choose a side.



Thanks to Freebooter too, and also Badeh who helped me out on page 134 of this thread.

This is meant to be a series, but I’ve had the second book outlined for uh.. well for two years. It took me a month to get the first one done, I was unemployed at the time and now life’s kind of got the drop on me. I have a weeks vacation...

It is a stand-alone book, but it ends on a menacing cliffhanger. I tried to do what Butcher did with dresden. Tell a story, introduce the characters, world, conflicts and basic rules. Like twin peaks I tried to make every answer raise more questions.

Is it worth it to release in a few months if it means I’ll have a second book?

BBQ Dave fucked around with this message at 18:18 on May 21, 2018

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
has anyone who's written a book here had a map made for putting in your book? like, actually commissioned one from some sort of professional? i would like one for trad pub purposes but its for a proof of concept thing and i figure yall might have a good inkling on a person worth their salt to purchase one from.

im in a weird situation where an ~impressive fantasy map~ found at the beginning of a book is actually integral to the narrative so i'd like to get it done on my own terms first.

Bardeh
Dec 2, 2004

Fun Shoe

BBQ Dave posted:

Okay first two paragrraph on intro, then hint, then cliffy. Here we go:

There is a saying in the tiny mountain town of Wyrdenville, Carcosa County, State of Jefferson (established 1960 CE, North of California, South of Oregon), “If you weren’t born here, you must be on the run from something.”

Ask the ten locals about newcomer Milo Edgewood you’ll get ten different answers. He’s the museum manager. That’s the guy who wears suits. That smug Californian. That well-meaning fool. That suspicious widower. Wyrdenville was supposed to be a place for Milo to start over, live small, away from the smoldering remains of his old life. No more insanity.

But sometimes insanity comes calling.

Something old and powerful is stirring in the woods just beyond the lights of town. It begins reaching out for Milo when a woman steps out of his past, forcing him to choose between his new home and old obligations. Lines are being drawn in a conflict many strange eons in the making, and Milo will be forced to choose a side.



Thanks to Freebooter too, and also Badeh who helped me out on page 134 of this thread.

This is meant to be a series, but I’ve had the second book outlined for uh.. well for two years. It took me a month to get the first one done, I was unemployed at the time and now life’s kind of got the drop on me. I have a weeks vacation...

It is a stand-alone book, but it ends on a menacing cliffhanger. I tried to do what Butcher did with dresden. Tell a story, introduce the characters, world, conflicts and basic rules. Like twin peaks I tried to make every answer raise more questions.

Is it worth it to release in a few months if it means I’ll have a second book?

Oh hey I remember this book! Great job on getting that absolutely sick cover done for it, I freaking love it.

You can use this handy little tool to play around with html tags and see exactly how your blurb will look on the Amazon listing page.

https://ablurb.github.io/

I did a little trimming and pruning and shuffling again, and it would look like this:



I like to use the <h2> tags to get a nice bold teaser sort of thing at the top. I don't think it comes out big and orange like that anymore on the actual Amazon page, but it does still stand out.

My 2c on your launch strategy:

1. Enroll the book in Kindle Unlimited for one term (make sure you uncheck the auto-renrollment thingy when you publish) and reevaluate after that. KU is great for visiblity, and the promo tools are very helpful. It's 90 days, and then if you're not getting many reads or just want to give it a shot on the other sites, you can do it then.

2. Price at $3.99 - you can do a countdown deal or a 99c deal down the line. For a premium-looking product like yours, in a non-romance genre, pricing at 99c could actually hurt sales. This can also be changed at any time if you're really not moving any units, but I think you will.

3. Get a mailing list set up NOW, TODAY, and put the signup link in the front and back of the book. Mailchimp works fine as a free service to start off with.

4. Find some free and paid promo. Look for blogs, newsletters, etc and reach out to them. If your book was in romance I would have a ton of suggestions for you, but I don't know what's good for horror. I'm sure there's stuff out there though, so take a look. Try and get as many as you can, and stagger them over a few days close to release, starting maybe 3-4 days after the book goes live.

5. Start writing the next book. Your book ends on a cliffhanger, and you don't want to piss people off by having them really enjoy your book, be ready for more, and then keep them waiting for it. They'll get annoyed, and they'll drift away and it won't be easy to get them back. Use your newsletter to offer snippets of it as you go, etc etc. This one is really important - you said you're really busy, but if you can just find an hour a night and really knuckle down on it, you can have the next book written in a month or two, especially as it's already planned out. If you really won't be able to get this done in that timeframe, I would either consider holding off until Book 2 is more complete, or amending the ending to Book One and tone down the cliffhanger a little.

Good luck, and let us know when the book is released, because I know I'll borrow a copy.

BBQ Dave
Jun 17, 2012

Well, that's easy for you to say. You have a bad imagination. It's stupid. I live in a fantasy world.

All right, I'm gonna try to get book 2 done. Set time aside every night. I'll check back in a month or two.

Thanks for all the advice, printed it out and put it in my work file. Got a few pages in me today.

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

BBQ Dave posted:

There is a saying in the tiny mountain town of Wyrdenville, Carcosa County, State of Jefferson (established 1960 CE, North of California, South of Oregon), “If you weren’t born here, you must be on the run from something.”

Ask the ten locals about newcomer Milo Edgewood you’ll get ten different answers. He’s the museum manager. That’s the guy who wears suits. That smug Californian. That well-meaning fool. That suspicious widower. Wyrdenville was supposed to be a place for Milo to start over, live small, away from the smoldering remains of his old life. No more insanity.

But sometimes insanity comes calling.

Something old and powerful is stirring in the woods just beyond the lights of town. It begins reaching out for Milo when a woman steps out of his past, forcing him to choose between his new home and old obligations. Lines are being drawn in a conflict many strange eons in the making, and Milo will be forced to choose a side.

The stuff I've bolded sticks out like a sore thumb, cut it. Even if being set in a fictional state is ultimately relevant to the plot it doesn't need to be in the blurb.

feedmyleg
Dec 25, 2004
100% agreed. Reading that made me feel like it was going to be a worldbuilding-first book filled with paragraph after paragraph of boring alt-history. Cut it.

BBQ Dave
Jun 17, 2012

Well, that's easy for you to say. You have a bad imagination. It's stupid. I live in a fantasy world.

freebooter posted:

The stuff I've bolded sticks out like a sore thumb, cut it. Even if being set in a fictional state is ultimately relevant to the plot it doesn't need to be in the blurb.

Lol. My only question was about that. I was coming here to ask if I didn’t have to leave that out.

feedmyleg posted:

100% agreed. Reading that made me feel like it was going to be a worldbuilding-first book filled with paragraph after paragraph of boring alt-history. Cut it.

Okay okay good advice. If I did my job they’ll get all that from reading the story. Nobody goes shopping for a book looking for an alternate history thing.

It’s a big part of the world building, since I came up with all this while living in Northern California where everyone is super into “The state of Jefferson”. Now that I think of it in marketing terms, no fan of the concept of state of Jefferson is going to like it because in my timeline succeeding from the rest of California was a terrible idea for the residents of that area.

It’s out of the blurb.:doh:

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

Don't sweat it, that's the point of asking for feedback!

You can be totally into the worldbuilding and if your story is good enough it'll string along the people who wouldn't necessarily go looking for that. But for your blurb you want to appeal to a broader swathe and avoid the kind of thing which, while it might not put them off when handled well in the story, will definitely put them off when you try to shoehorn it into the blurb.

Chicory
Nov 11, 2004

Behold the cuteness.

anime was right posted:

has anyone who's written a book here had a map made for putting in your book? like, actually commissioned one from some sort of professional? i would like one for trad pub purposes but its for a proof of concept thing and i figure yall might have a good inkling on a person worth their salt to purchase one from.

im in a weird situation where an ~impressive fantasy map~ found at the beginning of a book is actually integral to the narrative so i'd like to get it done on my own terms first.

I don't have an answer for you, but if anyone else does I'd be interested too. I'm in the middle of writing a fantasy series and my own drawing skills are just not up too it. I've considered trolling through some artist commission sites to see if I can find any artists who do that sort of thing. Anyway, best of luck!

Keromaru5
Dec 28, 2012

Pictured: The Wolf Of Gubbio (probably)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund
A bit of a practical question:

I took my books to a convention a while back, and the batch of copies I got from Createspace turned out to have darkened covers and unsightly dried glue on the spine. Only four were in any shape I'd consider selling. I sent pictures to CS, and they replaced every affected copy, no trouble. I'm going to a book fair at the local library in a few weeks, and what I have looks great.

But now I have some surplus copies with that dried glue on the spine, and I don't know what to do with them. I'd hate to throw them all away. I've tried Goo-Gone. Beyond that, I'm stumped.

Hijinks Ensue
Jul 24, 2007
Maybe donate them? In the past I've given gently used books to Operation Paperback (http://www.operationpaperback.org). They send books to military service people all around the world.

Veni Vidi Ameche!
Nov 2, 2017

by Fluffdaddy
Sorry if this was addressed somewhere else in the thread. Does anyone here have experience with selling audiobooks on Amazon? I have a couple of stories I’ve been thinking about hiring actors off of ACX to read for me. I do not plan to sell them. If I do anything with them, I’ll probably put them up for free on a website. Fiddling with ACX got me curious, though. Do any of you sell audio versions of your work? Do people buy audiobooks of non-bestseller works?

KrunkMcGrunk
Jul 2, 2007

Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.

I do not personally have audiobooks, but I know many people who do pretty well selling audio book fiction! Seems to vary by genre though (or maybe it's just the small sample size I have). You can do a royalty split with a narrator through Audidble, or pay them up front. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe there's a place you can put up information on your story on Audible's site, which will let you hold auditions for a narrator.

Blorknorg
Jul 19, 2003
Crush me like a Blorknorg!

KrunkMcGrunk posted:

I do not personally have audiobooks, but I know many people who do pretty well selling audio book fiction! Seems to vary by genre though (or maybe it's just the small sample size I have). You can do a royalty split with a narrator through Audidble, or pay them up front. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe there's a place you can put up information on your story on Audible's site, which will let you hold auditions for a narrator.

You sign up with an amazon site called ACX, or Amazon Creation Exchange. You then 'claim' your book from its listing on Amazon, and enter some information about the genre, what kind of narrator you're seeking, relevant keywords, etcetera. At that point you select three snippits of your book for an 'audition' that people can view and submit their version of it. If a narrator submits an audition that you like, you then 'make an offer' which is a 7 year ACX contract. You can also circumvent the contract (which requires exclusivity on Audible and itunes I believe) if you produce the audio on your own dime and then agree to a lesser royalty amount (25% to author rather than 40% split between author and narrator). Without the contract you can freely sell elsewhere.

Narrators do something similar, where they instead have samples of their reads, and a listing of relevant work they've done. Narrators can search books seeking auditions by genre and keywords that you input during the 'claim' phase.

One of the things that wasn't immediately obvious to me that I was grateful someone from this very thread explained early on, is that you don't have to just wait for auditions as the author. In fact with all of the submissions coming in it's very unlikely you'll get a solid narrator without seeking them out and politely asking if they'd be interested in working with you.

Veni Vidi Ameche!
Nov 2, 2017

by Fluffdaddy

KrunkMcGrunk posted:

I do not personally have audiobooks, but I know many people who do pretty well selling audio book fiction! Seems to vary by genre though (or maybe it's just the small sample size I have). You can do a royalty split with a narrator through Audidble, or pay them up front. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe there's a place you can put up information on your story on Audible's site, which will let you hold auditions for a narrator.

Doesn’t Amazon own Audible, now? I’m familiar with ACX, but I didn’t know Audible had narrators for hire. I just started writing a few stories after more than twenty years of my only fiction output being little vignettes on these very forums, plus a couple of contributions to Goon projects like the sea-steading book. I don’t think anyone will pay for anything I write. I just want to hear one of my stories read out loud by someone who isn’t me.


Blorknorg posted:

You then 'claim' your book from its listing on Amazon

This is what stopped me. None of what I’ve written has been published, and probably never will be. There is one Scottish guy I found on ACX who I’m thinking of contacting outside ACX.

Blorknorg
Jul 19, 2003
Crush me like a Blorknorg!

Veni Vidi Ameche! posted:

This is what stopped me. None of what I’ve written has been published, and probably never will be. There is one Scottish guy I found on ACX who I’m thinking of contacting outside ACX.

I think ACX is completely fine with that actually. One of the people I contacted with interest was having some health issues, and after 30 days or so your ACX listing will expire from the active searchable list, so we were just emailing back and forth for a bit.

I'd also say don't be afraid to contact your Scottish guy, really. A lot of the narrators are just as nervous and lost about the whole process as the authors are. I ended up speaking to a number of them, and the ones who replied were always very pleasant and responsive. I was frankly surprised that the person doing my book was, in fact, quite willing to do it even when I laid out the fact that it probably isn't going to be huge in any sense.

Veni Vidi Ameche!
Nov 2, 2017

by Fluffdaddy

Blorknorg posted:

I think ACX is completely fine with that actually. One of the people I contacted with interest was having some health issues, and after 30 days or so your ACX listing will expire from the active searchable list, so we were just emailing back and forth for a bit.

I'd also say don't be afraid to contact your Scottish guy, really. A lot of the narrators are just as nervous and lost about the whole process as the authors are. I ended up speaking to a number of them, and the ones who replied were always very pleasant and responsive. I was frankly surprised that the person doing my book was, in fact, quite willing to do it even when I laid out the fact that it probably isn't going to be huge in any sense.

Thanks for sharing. I do plan to contact him. In my case, revenue share isn’t an option, because I don’t plan to monetize the story. As I mentioned, my stories aren’t particularly compelling, and i just want them narrated for me to listen to, and maybe to put up on a website.

One problem is that I can’t find the guy, now. I can’t remember the set of filters I had on, but I’m sure I’ll locate him, again, once I have a little time to spend browsing ACX.

gerg_861
Jan 2, 2009

Ashwat posted:

I don't have an answer for you, but if anyone else does I'd be interested too. I'm in the middle of writing a fantasy series and my own drawing skills are just not up too it. I've considered trolling through some artist commission sites to see if I can find any artists who do that sort of thing. Anyway, best of luck!

Try checking the Campaign Cartographer forums. That software seems to be the standard for fantasy map making (I've used it for some role playing games, but I suck compared to most of the people on the boards), and there are some incredibly talented people on their boards who are happy to put their skills to work for a bit of cash.

http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=6475

gerg_861
Jan 2, 2009
I'm running a Freebooksy on the second book in my series on Saturday, and I'm having a hard time deciding what promotion to run with my first book. Do I stick that on free as well to ensure that take up of the free second book is good, or do I stick it at 99p/cents on a countdown deal to try to re-coup some of the advertising costs? When I did a Freebooksy about a year ago on the first book I got enough additional KU reads to pay for the ad. Thoughts, opinions, derision?

Chicory
Nov 11, 2004

Behold the cuteness.

gerg_861 posted:

Try checking the Campaign Cartographer forums. That software seems to be the standard for fantasy map making (I've used it for some role playing games, but I suck compared to most of the people on the boards), and there are some incredibly talented people on their boards who are happy to put their skills to work for a bit of cash.

http://forum.profantasy.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=6475

I was hoping for some direction and this is exactly what I think I needed. Thank you so much!

simplefish
Mar 28, 2011

So long, and thanks for all the fish gallbladdΣrs!


I didn't realise good voice artists were that hard to find. Once I move house I'm definitely getting into that on my own terms. Right now I only get paid on projects where an agent and a studio take a cut

freebooter
Jul 7, 2009

gerg_861 posted:

I'm running a Freebooksy on the second book in my series on Saturday, and I'm having a hard time deciding what promotion to run with my first book. Do I stick that on free as well to ensure that take up of the free second book is good, or do I stick it at 99p/cents on a countdown deal to try to re-coup some of the advertising costs? When I did a Freebooksy about a year ago on the first book I got enough additional KU reads to pay for the ad. Thoughts, opinions, derision?

Is it a serial or a series where you can read the books out of order? Even if it's the latter I think people are reluctant to start at #2 in the series.

The Fuzzy Hulk
Nov 22, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT CROSSING THE STREAMS


I set all my books free for Prime Day tomorrow. It took forever, I wish they would have a better way than having to do each one individually.

divabot
Jun 17, 2015

A polite little mouse!

The Fuzzy Hulk posted:

I set all my books free for Prime Day tomorrow. It took forever, I wish they would have a better way than having to do each one individually.

I've just been posting the Smashwords and Book Depository links. (The paperback is Createspace so it's Amazon anyway, but ...)

n8r
Jul 3, 2003

I helped Lowtax become a cyborg and all I got was this lousy avatar
Is this thread still alive at all?

I'm looking at buying some publishing rights, but for some reason the publisher doesn't want to transfer the ISBN along with the rights. We would issue new ISBNs. How bad is this? I know in the past we've been able to associate new versions of books with previous versions on Amazon. I don't get why this person is being so paranoid about it.

moana
Jun 18, 2005

one of the more intellectual satire communities on the web

n8r posted:

Is this thread still alive at all?

I'm looking at buying some publishing rights, but for some reason the publisher doesn't want to transfer the ISBN along with the rights. We would issue new ISBNs. How bad is this?
The worst I can think is that you'll lose all of the reviews associated with the previous version. The best is that you might get a big old bump in rank if Amazon sees it as a "new" book instead of updating an old book.
edit: or if it's selling a ton now I guess the worst would be losing a good rank.

The Fuzzy Hulk
Nov 22, 2007

ASK ME ABOUT CROSSING THE STREAMS


I don’t blame him for being paranoid, Amazon is crazy right now.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

divabot
Jun 17, 2015

A polite little mouse!

moana posted:

The worst I can think is that you'll lose all of the reviews associated with the previous version. The best is that you might get a big old bump in rank if Amazon sees it as a "new" book instead of updating an old book.
edit: or if it's selling a ton now I guess the worst would be losing a good rank.

this is mostly a case of asking customer service to merge them, isn't it?



oh, while I'm here! A QUESTION:

Does anywhere do usable print-on-demand in full colour? Doesn't have to be awesome, just not rubbish.

Use case: a friend's large colourful coffee table book that had a good old 3500 print run that sold out (yay!) and she'd like to see about POD, 'cos the publisher doesn't think there's really demand for another full print run. Trouble is, I hear lots bad about colour POD. Four-colour printing is lies and deception in general, so I'm unsurprised.

I have heard that CreateSpace - so presumably IngramSpark, who do most of their actual printing - are fine with B+W (I'm certainly delighted) but not so gret akshully with colour.

Is there any POD that is actually good with colour? She'd like to release the book at all POD, without having boxes of goddamn books filling her house.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply