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I think you should post something for critique or join a writers group if you intend to publish. You need to get more eyes on it so it can get massaged into a better product and so you can get better at it. Also you know listen and read a lot about writing and read books in your genre.
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Jul 1, 2021 02:35
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Leng posted:Will Wight (https://www.willwight.com/) is a very successful self-published author, so much that I think when he went to some writing convention, he stood up and asked Sanderson if there was any value in him switching over to traditional publishing. Wight reeled off some numbers, then Sanderson (and the rest of the panelists) told him he's doing great and that it's probably not worth his while to switch over, because he would end up making LESS. His most recent release (Bloodline, Book 9 in the Cradle series) hit the NYT bestseller list. Wight earns enough to hire and pay for his own team (there's at least a part time business manager on board, don't know to what extent his other staff are employed as). If only it hadn’t been near midnight in my local time zone I would have been on it.
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Jul 23, 2021 18:17
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Oh that is interesting can you talk about your decision to go on kindle unlimited?
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Jul 26, 2021 12:17
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Well, maybe it needs more stickers? In other news I started posting my web serial on royal road and it’s been an experience. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46687/red-mist Have a look and see if my multiple rounds of edits have made it any good! 3 chapters are up and I’ve started queuing up a week ahead. I think that doing review swaps has helped a bunch but that’s a whole thing on its own and I hope to have a bigger picture in a month.
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Sep 25, 2021 09:02
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White Chocolate posted:Well, maybe it needs more stickers? Dropped from 34,000th to like 3,860 after two weeks of consistency, so it’s not very difficult to get up there, but I think there’s some strategy to it.
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Sep 30, 2021 01:40
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I used the epub generator that you get from royal road premium and… it’s not terrible??? My book isn’t done but for five dollars a month you can get it just put into the right format easily. Anyone that wants to see the result, I’ll gladly send it to you.
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Oct 20, 2021 01:48
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That’s awesome. When I order my author copies I’ll make sure to show the results. My question is, what kind of awards merit recognition as a self-published author? Winning a watty? NY times bestsellers? #1 on their genre on amazon?
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Oct 20, 2021 23:36
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After like three books on self publishing, one do you have a social media presence and two do you have a mailing list, those seem to be the key beyond word of mouth. That's the regular old fiction or non-fiction book rec. Since this is also a gaming supplement, I assume it's also fighting for space with other possible games that people would play. The last three games that were TTRPGS that I picked up to play were in this order, and reason. Blades in the dark- heard great things about thw system and it didn't dissapoint Honey Heist - was a comment in dungeons and daddies or TAZ that caught my notice. PBTA- I was only interested because of friends at the table and the desire to play this or band of blades, couldn't get a group going So my advice is to get this into the hands of .ore people who want to play it and can review it, and/or do some live plays and get some buzz with it. Think about why you picked up a certain game or supplement and take that to its logical conclusion . I picked honey heist because the rules were one page and my time was short. I picked blades because I wanted to see how it worked. People don't just play alone, they play with groups. And often it's the one person bringing in the game and explaining the rules. I have been that person frequenly. David Gaughan has a good series of books about mailing lists and the nuts and bolts of self pub. Much of that is about finding your ideal audience. Think about your ideal audience and where they hang out online(this is why I joined the progression fantasy subreddit and discord).
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Dec 30, 2021 13:27
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Also just re-read your post and I hope that you're already making a follow on supplement book for your main audience(people who had already bought in) and I hope you converted everyone on your Kickstarter list over or gave them an opt out for your newsletter. Nothing sells a book more than it's sequels. Leng can tell you that series do a lot better generally than standalones.
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Dec 30, 2021 13:31
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divabot posted:Started on another book, yay! Readers are excited to see what we come up with! My instinct here is to say(as a small imprint self pub) that there should be some in between corporate asset or one of you should just pay the other for their work at a set rate.
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Jan 20, 2022 18:39
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Leng posted:The Courtney Project has just started doing a new series of videos on YouTube doing cover critiques: Meanwhile I have an artist but he wants $1,000 for the cover.
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Jan 24, 2022 23:53
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LionArcher posted:Unless we're talking like sci fi epic hand drawn poo poo, that's too much. Especially if you don't have a pen name with a ton of readers yet. A good pre made (there's plenty out there) for first or second or third books, and spend the extra money on editing. Yeah it's military science fiction. I may spend a good chunk of change on the editing but no advertising budget yet. Maybe a book bub.
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Jan 29, 2022 00:53
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ravenkult posted:Let us see! https://www.deviantart.com/alexiuss/gallery/all
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Jan 29, 2022 00:55
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Ccs posted:In my opinion, as someone who commissioned a book cover and who also works in the cg industry, this person does not yet have the skill level to charge those prices. For them it might make sense depending on how long it takes them. A contradiction among illustrators is the really pro ones have also gotten really fast, so they can charge $70 an hour but put out a book cover in 12 hours that will look light years better than an artist charging a smaller hourly amount but for whom it takes 40 hours to come up with something half decent. Yeah I think the difference here is that he has cornered his market. (Web serials, royal road) thus he can charge what he wants.
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Jan 30, 2022 15:40
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Alright can someone break this merger down barney style for me?
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Feb 9, 2022 03:17
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So I this is pretty USA specific but I am between getting 10 ISBNs for 275$...or 100 for $595. I am pretty certain that I will need more than ten but this has stopped me publishing my novella. Balls. Canadians have it so good. I guess I should stick with the ten though.
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Jun 4, 2022 23:56
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I'll post my marketing plan here but first.. getting a po box to establish my self pub business. Oh boy it's work. ANYWAY. Here is what I am doing for my debut novel - mil scifi. Marketing strategy for "The Badger Company" High level Strategy 1: Get more KU readers to read my military scifi book Strategy 2: Get bobiverse readers to read Strategy 3: get progression fantasy readers to read and rec S4: reviews! Lowest level Tactics 1.1: spend enough time to get on silver pens(royal road top author discord) and make a network...and a following slash author platform accordingto david gaughrans boom following... 1.2: start exchanging shout outs to similar fictions and build up goodwill and favors 1.3: write a fiction that can move a lot of readers(fictions followers and views)- Sect Leader- so I can accomplish 1.1 and 1.2 at this writing sect leader was a smash hit as much as I could make it. 1.4: For everyone that I have shouted out, ask them for a shout out for BC on or around launch date(sept 5th) there will probably be an ensuing spreadsheet(I track this through discord PMs). This will probably be the biggest factor I can leverage myself. Also this would be nods from other authors newsletters. 2.1: Target the bobiverse Facebook group and the subreddit. Getting recommendations there would multiply any results. 2.2: For FB? Be active. Like and comment on posts that are fun. (DON'T AD SPEND, until book 3) The goal here is to get someone to rec BC into the group on our behalf. 2.3: For reddit, speak with mods about self recommendations. Are there mods? Not a lot of posts there. 2.4: The absolute highest thing here qould be getting someone to recommend this book to daniel greene. Do I need to consider joining his discord again? Has someone else in booktube also loved bobiverse? 3.1: two spots for prog fantasy people- their subreddit and the discord server. 3.2: some self posting is allowed there, so when it drops get someone to rec it there, and attempt to get as many as possible to get the word out. 3.3: when someone asks, I just finished cradle what's next? The goal is to have someone say the badger company series. 4.1 get people to commit to review the book ahead of time. Remind them. Remind them that they can have the review ready to post. Remind them that amazon doesn't care about collusion the way RR does. Many people have committed to this. It's all in the follow up.
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Jun 23, 2022 02:38
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Sailor Viy posted:I really like seeing people's marketing plans. 100% the bobiverse series is a progression fantasy as its core and my closest comparable author is Dennis E. Taylor. Cradle is also a kindle unlimited series and it is the classic example of the new genre of prog fantasy its often brought up as a comparable series. Also the audience is pretty big for Cradle... and I'm not going to move anywhere near Will Wights numbers. The man makes like 60k plus each time he launches a book. The dream would be to have my novel as an amazon also bought for unsouled, expeditionary force or we are legion we are bob.
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Jun 24, 2022 10:54
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Well my novel is finally up out in the world. After so many delays, it's g2g. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BD6V44V4/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1662460971&refinements=p_27%3AJP+Weaver&s=digital-text&sr=1-1&text=JP+Weaver And it's on Kindle Unlimited, because military scifi. Now to find a narrator... Blurb... and The cover art makes me so happy. If I die, you’d better come back and avenge me, you goddamn ghost in the machine." Malcolm Parker was poised to make history as the habitation engineer who made his country's colonization initiatives possible—until a stealth missile strike destroyed the U.S. moon base. All that’s left of him is his A.I. clone, who must carry on both his fantasy tabletop campaign and the original mission: find and secure the closest habitable system. Trapped inside a space probe with a computer for a brain and other AIs for company, Malcolm and his crew face hostile spacecraft alone. The same assailants in pursuit or an opportunistic third party—either way they seem intent on wiping out the last remnants of America’s space program. Artificial intelligence isn't recognized as people under U.S. law, so as far as the top brass in the U.S. military is concerned, the crew is on their own. Or are they?
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Sep 7, 2022 01:44
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I know a very good cover artist that does anime style and they're quoting like $100 a cover. https://twitter.com/FuyuDust?t=Fsq_z-cGeyn_afjy8c942Q&s=09 Twitter is fuyudust and they're active on discord. This is my book and the cover was $600. Well worth The Badger Company Phylodox did the other cover and he is active on the forums: Riverfolk Volume One That wasn't as expensive by a long shot. Dream Weaver fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Oct 2, 2022 |
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Oct 2, 2022 14:58
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So I did a book barbarian promo and it was a pretty small spike. I am guessing the equivalent of selling ~8 books with KENP combined with ebook sales. I wouldn't say that I have an opinion on it either way, but next I'll be trying some Facebook ads The book barbarian ad was $60. I am going to try a run of Facebook ads. https://davidgaughran.com/email-archive/ Is where I am going to try to learn his method for FB ads. I did a week long promotional drop from 5.99 to 2.99 as a part of it. Also Germans love my book for some reason?
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Oct 15, 2022 19:41
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jazzyjay posted:Has anyone had any success using a third party marketer to promote their books? I have a trilogy that was published three years ago that was well received, thanks to the advice from this thread (thanks!) I'd highly suggest taking David Gaugrhans free course "Starting from zero" and doing bookbub and some other stuff he recommends instead. https://davidgaughran.com/.
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Feb 6, 2023 16:29
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jazzyjay posted:I'd love to but unfortunately/fortunately I'm running a business while studying as well already :/ The course really isn't that long and you would really really benefit from it as a self publisher.
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Feb 11, 2023 03:38
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Captain Log posted:God, reading about this AI stuff is both depressing and discouraging. Q1- I generally would stick with the genre conventions. If the genre allows novels of that length then do it, especially if there are clear end and beginning points. However a series is always best. 2-3 books works more for an author. I just read I.S. Belles horror book "Baby love" which was short but sweet and it lead into a separate book which was like 3-4 times as long Q2- sounds like cryptids. Best to find a similar author in the same vein. Who is a contemporary author who you write like? How long are their books? Amazon has hundreds of subgenres that you can use to refine what you're making.
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May 2, 2023 20:15
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SimonChris posted:I am getting tired of spending years submitting stories to magazines that take three months to reply and then making, like, 20 bucks when they finally sell. Given the time I spend researching markets, etc., it will be hard to make less money per hour, so I would like to give self-publishing a chance. As someone who just read a 49 page self published book called "Moist Actually" you can always make them cost like 99 cents and put them on KU.
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Jun 21, 2023 23:17
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SimonChris posted:Thank you for all of the feedback. This is extremely useful! I would buy this instantly and I follow most of Her advice. Also she made me read "Moist Actually" so I may be biased.
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Jun 24, 2023 23:12
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There's a thing about Amazon where if you have five days of consistent sales then they come in and advertise it for you. They "take over" to sell more hotcakes as it were.
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Jun 27, 2023 23:51
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SimonChris posted:So far my short stories have sold two copies, not including myself and personal friends, and have 2 KENP read on KU. I wasn't expecting to make bank from short fiction, but it would be nice if I could sell a few dozen copies, maybe. Bookbub it if you're doing at least a 2-3 book long series.(after book 2 is out) If not does it fit into the character of Wattpad,Scribble hub or Royal Road so you can build up a fan base? If you want to understand(the bookbub rec) why then...take the course. https://courses.davidgaughran.com/courses/starting-from-zero Leng did a video about his work(yes our Leng), if you want to do the absolute bare minimum research. https://youtu.be/sGyrO42tgTo Dream Weaver fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Jul 8, 2023 |
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Jul 8, 2023 21:06
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Fat Jesus posted:it's a puzzle that people buy books by their covers I feel like I need to beat this horse a little more but people buy books because they like the authors previous work is the sense I get. That and the author has built a following.
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Aug 17, 2023 01:02
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Selkie Myth posted:Oh hey! Just found this thread, I also self publish! This guy. Sheesh. Write more Elaine k thx.
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Aug 28, 2023 01:53
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CaptainCrunch posted:I've been meaning to ask for a while, but the recent activity in the SPFBO-sphere brought it back to mind. Well of course there is always the thunder dome and the annual Prestigious Leng Self Publishing Contest for YA adjacent fiction. You can't count those out. Also the stabbys?
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Aug 29, 2023 01:34
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KrunkMcGrunk posted:Are there any discords or Facebook groups or the like where LitRPG authors hang out? We generally have discord groups. At least all the ones I have met are on some of those.
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Sep 1, 2023 22:43
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KrunkMcGrunk posted:My goon, you are not alone. I can't think of a single author I know who doesn't miss also boughts! What!? When!!!! Omg omg.
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Sep 11, 2023 17:11
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CaptainCrunch posted:I'm curious about how hardcovers are received by readers these days? Are they still popular outside of the brick and mortar, trad pub "hardcover first then paperback" context? I feel like my knowledge is super out of date on them. Then there's dust jackets. Apparently KDP doesn't have them? The cover is just laminated to the board? I'm probably dating myself something fierce, but that seems really... cheap, to me. Congratulations. If I helps, I plan to do a hardcover Kickstarter when I finish my Sci-fi series. Otherwise it's just low margins. Also I finished another book woot. 96k words fantasy Xianxia. First draft, then it'll go on Royal road after the beta readers have a crack at it and I have the next 20 chapters done for Patreon et all. Blurb below 👇 and obviously if anyone wants to beta read. --- These young masters need therapy badly. Joseph Pidge, therapist and father of two girls, finds himself in a fantasy world where martial power and prowess is the highest calling and no one has ever heard of the word 'introspection'. Fortunately, that is exactly his speciality. With a new system and a new world, he has the opportunity to start fresh. But will anyone recognize that they need his help instead of continually punching each other? To add to his problems, many influential groups see him as a resource to be tapped and will go to great lengths to get him. Joe has had enough of pushy salesmen in his past life. If he can evade aggressive Sect recruiters, perhaps he can gentle parent his way to a better life.
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Feb 25, 2024 04:42
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CaptainCrunch posted:So a hardcover would be more for prestige/serious fans and really not for any profit potential? Ok. I think I can wrap my head around that. I mean the main twist is when his ex wife is also Ise-kaied for the sect that is trying to "recruit him" and he has the realization that both his daughters parents are not there, also they summon people to be used as fodder for their own growth sooo. But yeah I see what you are saying I'm trying to convey the "dad is far from his daughters and all that entails".
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Feb 27, 2024 00:45
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