Self-Publishing Goons: Yep, people buy it!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Self-Publishing Goons: Yep, people buy it!

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

Has anyone ever played with their publishing schedual? Say you are prolific enough to pub 6 novels a year at a roughly 1 every 2 months rate.

Assuming book buying has some kind of retail like cycle (aka xmas or whatever being a good time and march being poo poo).

Has anyone tried pubbing say 1 book every 3 months in the poo poo times and then blowing the doors down with 4 in quick succession over the good times to try and capitalise on it?

# ¿ May 6, 2015 18:56

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 01:45

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

You sure as hell better nail that blurb.

# ¿ May 11, 2015 21:39

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

As a reader unless the shorts are OMFG awesome (in which case why are they not novels?) I would be annoyed at a gap between picking one up and the main novel coming out.

Although honestly im much more likely to read the novel and pick up backstories for 99c if I enjoy the novel a lot.

# ¿ May 16, 2015 16:26

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

So having finished the thread I want to give this a shot. Please assume for all these questions a person with no experience, connections or history beyond this thread. Also assume standard or young adult romance for the genre.

First off, awesome thread. Second howtowritearomancenovel.com is an awesome site, I assume from the language one of you guys wrote it. Are there any other similar sites out there that come recommended?

Ive planned out when I could actually write and given averages from this thread and what I know about myself it works out to about 1 60-80,000 word novel a month with about a week for the stuff that isnt words on the page (cover, blurb, amazon administration, promotion etc) I think its safe to assume everything will take twice as long at first so maybe double all the timescales till I get to grips with it all. How does this rate of writing sound?

Editing costs cash. Good covers cost cash. Your first novel will probably bomb. Success is often built on the back of multiple releases and consistent publishing. How do you guys reconcile that? Pay for editing and a good cover and call it an investment in the future? Wing it for a couple of books and hope you make enougj to start paying from proceeds? Write super romance until you can cover the additional costs of novels? Im perfectly happy to cover the costs of the first books out of pocket, just dont want to throw good money away if the answer is along the lines of "wing it because no one will read it".

Lets talk order of operations. So far I can see the following plan of attack.
1) Read a bunch of stuff that sells in my genre
2) Plan and write
3) Blurb and cover
4) editing depending on the answer to the above
5) promotion
6) go to 1)
6.5) refresh amazon sales information until the crushing disappointment gives way to sleep.

Regarding that can someone suggest a few novels that are good examples in the romance genre?

Can we talk finances as well? I know the usual caveates apply but I don't even know what ballpark we are talking in at the moment. Based on some sort of averages and the above at what point would you expect a pen names novels to cover their own editing and cover costs? How are writers without a good history, network of connections and pre-existing fanbase doing?

Lastly what's the difference between a moana, a sean and a sundae and someone not doing well at all? Has it been a slow and steady build as you stack small gains with each book published or is it more tootling along just about making it work until you write a breakout and being in position to capitalise on that?

Thanks for reading my wall of text!

# ¿ May 25, 2015 14:56

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

EngineerSean posted:

Kinda lollin' at just handwaving away whether you'll be good at this or not, but this could be anywhere from an expensive hobby to a million dollar a year career.

Thats a perfectly valid point. Im not assuming im awesome but im not starting from the assumption everyone instantly deletes my novel in disgust after reading the first line either as that would make giving it a go kinda pointless. Until the world/market decides how good/bad I am I plan on sticking with the minimum of "not utterly hopeless".

I know you do well financially at writing, how much would you say your success is down to writing ability, publishing consistancy and luck (or something else)? Assuming you don't mind me asking of course.

# ¿ May 25, 2015 19:28

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

Im no expert but publishers, especially big ones, care about dollars on the table and would publish a literal poo poo on a page if they thought it would be a run away success.

They run as a business not as the vanguard of all things literary. If you fit their genres and have self pubbed to some level of success I would be really suprised if the line "I have self published x novels and sold y copies this year" doesn't make them sit up and take you very seriously.

The problem is, as i understand it, once you hit the point where they would be interested, you're no longer interested in them as you're making more money on your own than they would pay you.

# ¿ May 28, 2015 08:51

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

Yooper posted:

Colonel Cole Clarke, Armored Cavalry Commander, and his battalion of convicts are sent to the Kalivostok Front to reinforce a system controlled by an incompetent Duke. Only Cole understands what his tanks can do… if he can get them.

I'm not a fan of this to start with. If this were the a blurb on amazon I would have stopped reading. Unless this is a series and I already know clarke I don't have a reason to really care about any of this exposition yet. Even if it is part of a series you can do better because I like your second paragraph much more

Then a routine sentry mission discovers a human colony where only bones remain, but the hostiles are nowhere to be found.

This line here made me think "hey maybe i should pick this book up that sounds interesting i wonder whats going on

Days later a fusion bomb devastates the defending troops. This confused me, I thought they were all skeletons and already dead? Hordes of the insectoid Kadan flood the planet with the support from the technologically advanced Emflife. The 19th ACR, tested on the icy wastes of Lishun Delta, must hold the desert planet Squire. This and the last few sentances can be cleaned up I feel your trying to cram to much of your world into my brain, youve got a whole book for that. Drop any names and focus on how the ugly/evil/horrible insect robot mosters are doing what they are doing. Is this because of the skeletons? With? At the same time? Clear it up a bit and i think you have a good hook but personally i think you should resist the temptation to start dropping your unusual names in the blurb. Sent on an impossible mission with no support, they strike out alone. This should be your last line. This is like the yeah I wanna see how they do line that might get me to actually click buy on your book instead of the next book along They realize that the enemy is coming, but not like anyone expected. Their only defense is an armored assault with a bunch of convicts in the lead all inside of untested tanks based on Vasilov tractors again drop the world building in your blurb, maybe "untested tractor-tanks" or something? . For if they fail, the alien invasion won’t stop until they’ve burned their way across all of Vasilov Space. does this work better as just "all of space"?

Awesome cover. Take my blurb crit with a pinch of salt, im no literary genius but I do like reading good sci-fi!

Also formatting bold tags on a phone is a bitch remind me to never to that again.

[Edit] Just wanted to add that it may be a personal thing I havent researched the genre or its expectations or anything but when I read your blurb the first thought I had was that you're an author proud of the world you've created. Which is good. But worries me as a reader because that either means im getting a well thought out universe that adds to the story or 200 pages of dull as poo poo world wanking.

As im reading a blurb for an author I haven't read before on a book that a trusted person hasn't said is awesome, I don't give a poo poo. The job of the blurb is to make me give a poo poo. It has about ten seconds to do this before I click on the next book. The stuff about insect robot monsters and myserty outposts where everyones dead for no reason does that. Add in some sort of outsider/rough and ready/kick rear end space captain and his crew/buddies/squad on a no hope mission against the odds and hell yeah lets do this.

Start waffling on about back story and context here and you lose me, being harsh it would make me question how good the writing in the book is, am I going to get an awesome space marine vs robot insects with hi tech overlords space adventure or 50 pages on how to to file form 53b with the space housing board on planet viatulon III.

Give me conflict, give me obstacles and give me hope they might solve it.

Everything else can probably get out.

Also again, first time I've ever offered any advice around writing and just my uniformed reading opinion so I might be totally wrong.

Cast_No_Shadow fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Jun 6, 2015

# ¿ Jun 6, 2015 18:36

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

ArchangeI posted:

I dunno, I feel like the second book needs to be pretty "If you're just joining us, here is what is going on" instead of "this book will literally not make any sense unless you read the first one". You don't want to restrict the readership of book two to only the people who liked book one. Ideally, you'd want to funnel people to buy book one and join the series.

Yeah I had no idea it was a part two. Can it be read stand alone?

# ¿ Jun 6, 2015 19:30

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

I liked that second blurb much more. The first might get the book into my maybe pile, on a good day. This one is much more interesting to me as a reader who hasn't heard of the series before.

The only points I can pick out now are; "the defending troops on the desert planet..." phrasing seems off to me. Maybe im misunderstanding but either drop the first 'the' or change the 'on' to 'of' or 'from'?

The second is the insectoid Kadan guys flooding the planet with technology. The way it reads currently it could easily mean flooded in the way china is flooding the us with smartphones. Im assuming your insectoids are a bit more hostile? Are they assisted by this technology? Are they spreading it out because thats part of some plan? Are the ancient guys involved or is their tech just being used? Its a bit unclear.

Lastly, and this is something that might make more sense in the internal logic of your story but you've created a nice big existential threat. Yet the human response is this bunch of convicts. That made me go huh? But not in an entirely bad way.

Anyway much better!

# ¿ Jun 7, 2015 09:58

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

As a reader if nothing else I hope this will help get all you super romance scum off my sci-fi new release list.

No vampire bear sex firemen is not sci-fi and I hope whoever you are you never sell another copy again.

Although Amazon really does need to decide where it stands on explicit genres.

Either put them all in their own category, if its all there no one loses out and readers who want it will find it. Or decide it doesn't want smutty dollars and ban it all.

Sorry if I'm crapping all over your dreams.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2015 17:00

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

Super romance in normal sci-fi and fantasy categories is generally Amazon's fault.

Also a few months ago I tried finding fantasy and sci-fi stuff on KU and they were all pretty terrible (at least those in the top 100 and even in more specific categories). I'll try again after the pages-ranking has shuffled things around a bit, but what I saw before wasn't promising.

I have a high tolerance for poo poo in genres I enjoy (sci-fi being one of them) but I've given up on quite a few books after the first few pages.

I've given up on fantasy in KU.

Some I've enjoyed this week from the top 100;
The Brilliants series - Push past the first chapter, actually alright.
Lost Starship series - By the numbers sci-fi, competently done. loving awful character names though (I would pay for a find and replace feature on my kindle).
War Eternal series - See above, better character names, in fact a bit better all round.
Depature was decent (apparently about to be made into a movie) gets a bit messy towards the end.
God Complex - More thriller than sci-fi (the title does warn you) just about scrapes past the bar for enjoyable. Cheesy plot, pure vintage edam by the end.

Edit - Also I read about 5-10 books a week so if anyone wants me to beta read their sci-fi\fantasy\thriller books I'd be happy to give you my opinions. As long as I can read it on my kindle somehow.

Cast_No_Shadow fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Jun 22, 2015

# ¿ Jun 22, 2015 17:14

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

Thanks, I saved the list and I'll check them out when I get home in a couple days. It's amazing how cheesy some of the ones I've read are, and how much they would benefit by a competent editor that isn't afraid to point out weak characters, plots, arcs, or dialogue.

Yeah don't expect gold there, but I found those entertaining.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2015 17:21

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

As a brit Amazon should a advertise ku more. I had to try really hard to loving find it instead of "amazon prime trial" "have you tried amazon prime yet?" "Amazon prime, now with movies!!!" "You look like you want to sign up for amazon prime do you want me to help you with that".

Most people don't even seem to know its a thing here I have to keep explaining its like netflix but books.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 13:37

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

You read it. You can't unread it.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2016 08:03

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

All of you shut up. Its beautiful.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2016 09:50

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

I feel like I have just read two blurbs for two different books.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2016 09:22

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

Think about it from a readers point of view and what they do.

For example when I look for a new book the first think I do is search my favorite authors to see if they have anything new out. I then scroll down genre lists for things (covers and blurbs) that catch my eye. When I pick one if I like the book I search out the authors other works.

I don't think im atypical here so think how you fit into this. The more books you have the more likely I am to stumble on one and if I like it then your entire back catalogue gets a look in. The better you get a book ranking (which is admitedly playing the game) the more likely I am to find it. The cover/blurb/reviews all contribute as well to me picking your book out of the 8 triabillion books amazon shoves in my face.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2016 10:00

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

simplefish posted:

Honestly my target is about 500usd/month.

I'm going to be part time at this, and I'm giving myself a hard start date of end of Jan 2017. I just started a business and moved house and am renovating, with a lot to learn about the marketing process (thanks Angel Opportunity for your informative posts) and while I realise that distractions will never entirely go away, there is a level of "sorted-outness" that I need to hit. But conversely, I can't wait for everything to be "perfect", hence the hard deadline to have a schedule slot for writing, and all research done - no arguments and no bullshit.

I know bugger all about writing but I know enough about people to call bullshit!

Start now. Dont wait. Even if its just 500 words a day you just need to start and 500 a day will give you most of a novel to start the new year with.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2016 18:26

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 01:45

Cast_No_Shadow: Jun 8, 2010; The Republic of Luna Equestria is a huge, socially progressive nation, notable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, cynical population of 714m are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich.

Does follow autor do anything in amazon? Posting from a reader point of view but I just want to tell amzon "hey I like these guys tell me when they release new stuff" but can't seem to find any way of doing that beside subscribing to a bajillion individual mailing lists.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2016 10:24

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Self-Publishing Goons: Yep, people buy it!