Christopher D. Schmitz's Blog, page 2

How to launch a NL from less than zero?

I often share that my biggest regret isn’t sticking with my newsletter when I first started it 15 years prior to relaunching my career and making it a priority. “If I could redo one thing about my writing career, it would be to have started my newsletter 6 months to 1 year prior to launching my first book.”

Recently, someone reached out and asked me how to do that when they are both starting from 0 (no fan base or social media) and also have nothing published. It’s a fair question and seems like a real quagmire—any action you take results in just spinning your tires.

I actually did this very recently with a pen name for a side project I’m doing. It was partly proof of concept and just to say that I could do it, but the project is off genre for me. (I’m broad enough already.) I’ll give you a guide, using the same steps I took.

1. Write a reader magnet/short story to giveaway. I did this about the same time as I was doing the outline for this project (I detailed the series overview and then made a detailed outline for book 1 and wrote a short story that flowed into the first book, but which also stood alone.) Just write it and edit it; do not launch it yet.

2. Get a cover for B1 and the reader magnet (mind your branding.) Put B1 up for sale on prerelease. Generate a link to the book and use that link and cover when writing back matter for the reader magnet, also include a 1-2 chapter (edit this—make it clean) preview of B1.

3. Get setup with a NL list provider and set up onboarding automation. That means you should be optimistic and use a paid service since most don’t let you do it for free. There are many to choose from, so pick one that’s right for you, I made my choice based on the ease of doing “resend” campaigns and sending a second copy of the email to people who did not open the first time around since open rates are important to me. The book Newsletter Ninja provides a good guide for onboarding automations, so does Mark Dawson’s course, and many others. 

4. Sign up for Bookfunnel and/or Storyorigin and setup your NL swap dates. (This is your planning calendar for when you will send newsletters. Setup 2x share slots per month, meaning you will accept 2 authors to share with per NL.) Do not miss your dates, especially when you are new and haven’t yet created trust with readers and swap partners. These services also cost money and are worth the cost of investment.

5. Ask a few authors you know in the same genre to share the landing page for your magnet and list. His or her readers will, if they are interested in your short story, need to sign up for your email list in order to download it. (Don’t spam every author you know and beg for this—make a targeted ask—even 1 or 2 shares is beneficial. Remember, you are asking for something of value and offering nothing in return… people do favors based on value/strength of relationships, and they may not be in a position to help you.)

6. Get 2 swap partners for your first monthly email and submit/get accepted into 1-2 group promos. Do not do more than this. I know it’s counterintuitive as you want to get as much traction as possible to have a base to begin with, but you need to start smaller and scale up. Focus on getting GOOD readers rather than adding to a subscriber count. I’m going to be crass, but your NL is special access: some folks will appreciate it and others are just joining to get the thing that they want (a free book, etc.) Think of it a little like your virginity. You can add to your “body count” and rack up a bunch of faceless, nameless numbers by attending a local orgy at the back of a sketchy, local dive bar, or you can build meaningful relationships with people. The analogy stops there, because you eventually want both. But to begin with, you have to focus on strong connections or your list will plateau after a few months and all your traction will stall out (making the money you spent on services into a bad investment).
-The Group Promos are a way to be a part of a local, digital event where everybody shares to the common landing page (usually, participating books are randomized so everyone gets a spot at the top.) Think of these like an online book fair. Only join group promotions that are in the same genre as your book. Anything else is wasted effort at best, and can hurt you long term at worst by messing with also-boughts, generating spam complaints, dragging down your sender rating (making your emails end up in spam filters), or harm your click-thru and open rates.

7. As you are preparing to officially launch your shiny new NL, set up at 1-2 local events with the purpose of getting sign ups (these will be your best followers, in my experience.) Find events that are relevant to your genre if possible, but if not, it might include a table at a craft fair, holiday or farmer’s market, arts festival, comic convention, quilting bee, etc. Get creative. You may choose to have a few copies of your Reader Magnet printed, but resist the temptation to gear your booth to selling the magnet (You might also print a “dummy copy” ARC for B1 since you have the cover art and a pre-sale link already generated; this will build interest). You are there to build connections and sign up new friends. Remind visitors they’ll get the free book immediately upon signing up—that’s what Bookfunnel and Storyorigin does on your behalf. Bring a device to register visitors on the spot. Don’t play around with pen, paper, and illegible writing: use a tablet with an internet connection and let these people type in their email address on the landing page/signup page from either your NL service or your Bookfunnel/Storyorigin landing page. Refresh the page after each signup for the next person.

8. Optionally, search for anthology collections that will accept stories that are reprints and push your NL signup in the back matter/author bio section. This will have a similar effect to the group promos mentioned above.

This plan is very strategic and takes some forethought. Remember that this is a crockpot and not a microwave. The anthology I got into was not released yet by launch time, but after 1 month I generated about 500 subscribers with an initial open rate of 37% and a click rate of 14%.

Targeting Relevant Audiences For Book Events

I use Bookfunnel and StoryOrigin to arrange group promotions. Because I get lots of applicants to my promos (and I always verify share stats from applicants) I get to look at a lot of data and metrics. Minutes ago I looked at one author who had a good swap history with good clicks on her promos, except every other month she had certain promos returning 0 clicks. 30-50 clicks on everything else, and then goose-eggs.

Her subscribers didn’t want to click on certain kinds of promos. Which ones? Each of those promos were advertised as “All Genre” or “multi-genre” bundles. I know I never join these kinds of promotions. The targeting is all wrong. Authors think they are going to tap into some major lists of whale readers by putting their Urban Fantasy or Science Fiction in bundles alongside Reverse Harem and Christian Bible Study books.

But zero clicks. 0. Nada. Nothing. And that result is common. Readers know what they like and what they are looking for.

There’s a deep marketing principle to be learned here: don’t expect to harvest turnips in a bean field. It sounds super Zen, right? (I just made that up… but it’s totally true.) Readers aren’t known for crossing lots of genre lines, and they also dislike endless scrolling to see if there is something that they do like in a giant mix of things. Ask yourself this, if you want to eat M&Ms do you buy a bag of trail mix and then spend the next fifteen minutes sorting out all the M&Ms or would you rather just buy a damn bag of M&Ms? I know… very Zen of me. Readers feel the same way, and so do paperback buyers.

Today, we’re talking about targeting your audience properly and why it’s important to know your audience. If you can nail this, two things will happen. 1) You’ll meet the needs of your readers and better connect with them. 2) You’ll make that glorious cheddar.

One of the reasons that amazon ads are so successful for so many people is that it provides tools for authors who are marketing their books to zero in on a niche and drill down into it. The closer you can hit your niche (and therefore your strongest demographic for sales) the best performance your ad will have (which translates to better sales margins and profits.)

Selling more books at live events (hey! I’ve got a book by that title!) is always a tricky prospect. But it’s only guaranteed to fail if you don’t do your homework and show up to the wrong event. It would be insanely unwise to show up at a shoe seller’s convention and try to sell your brand of thriller novels next to the Reebok booth. The audience did not come for that, and only a small fraction will have the specific interest in reading, let alone in your genre, and even then it’ll be a tough sell since they didn’t likely come intending to spend time skimming paperbacks.

Likewise, if you attend a Christian Romance Literary event and try to sell your man on man spicy erotica books with covers so sizzling ab-a-licious that the nuns in the back are blushing you better believe you’re going to get Live, Love, Laughed right out of the building and are then forcibly baptized in essential oils.

“But it’s romance,” one might argue. “No. It’s smut,” that audience is likely to say. But likewise, the star book of the Christian Romance Literary event might not sell even a single copy at a Romance Writers Book Sale if it is more geared to the steamy side of things.

Regardless of the quality your product, you must also be keenly aware of your audience, its desires and expectations, and who the readers are as individuals. If you ignore it, any of those prerequisites, no amount of quality will let you reach the success you have envisioned. Your book must be relevant to the people you are showing it to.

Ironically, as I was writing this, I got an email from Mark Dawson (one of the Kings of Amazon Ads.) He writes about this same exact thing. He says about his earlier marketing approach on amazon: “I found it impossible to get clicks. I used a ‘scattergun’ approach: I would hoover up as many keywords as I could find and dump them into an ad with the hope that at least some of them would start to trigger and, hopefully, sell books… My initial forays were unsuccessful.”

Dawson notes he went back to Facebook ads because he was more familiar with it at that time. But with FB, “you need to take a potential reader from whatever it was they were doing and then deliver them to a store where they can then purchase the book that they’ve just seen. They almost certainly were not looking for a book when they saw the ad…” But with Amazon, “readers are actively looking for the kind of book that you’re advertising and all you need to do is show it to them.”

The online selling platform is different from a digital one, but there are a lot of principles that crossover, such as keeping your targeting relevant. Relevance, as far as live sales are concerned, is searching for as many of the “warm doors” as you can. It is easiest to sell books to people who love to read and prefer physical copies; being able to meet the author and get a paperback/hardcover autographed creates an added bonus by creating a meet & greet experience. But as cool as that is, people won’t care if it is not relevant to them. I would have zero inclination to read either of the example romance books. It doesn’t check any boxes for me, and so I wouldn’t likely stop and chat about anything book related. Even if some moment of curiosity did make me stop, there would be a zero percent chance of me buying.

The relevance factor is why you have to know your audience. Not just the market, but the people in it. I’ve wondered in the past about my ability to do a “cash grab” and write a romance book under a pen name. But I don’t think I would be successful. I simply don’t know the market, or the people of the market, well enough to accomplish this. Could I write a good romance book? I think I absolutely could, but it would hit the niche for things I like and would not necessarily hit the right mix of readers’ expectations… and I’d stand out like Eddie Murphy at a KKK rally if I tried to fake it at a Romance Lit Conference.

If you’re going to attend an event and set up a table/booth to sell your books at, here are some of the key things to bear in mind about relevance:

Genre expectationsCross over marketsLikely outcomes.Know the eventKnow who your audience is

Genre Expectations:

Having a good story is a must, regardless of genre. It should be edited and entertaining if its fiction or meet critical needs of your audience if it is nonfiction. But aside from those, which are matters of craft, there are some matters of form and function that are also expectations that vary by genre: everything from your cover design (even whether you use glossy or matte lamination) to trim size and the number of pages (here is a link to an article about expected word-count listed by genre). While indies are known for often coloring outside the lines, if you attempt to get too far outside of genre expectations, it will come back and cost you book sales.

Cross Over Markets:

If your book is a couple degrees outside of the expected genres, it might still do very well. Understand where there is crossover appeal. Sci-fi readers often also like fantasy. I sell a lot of both when I do targeted events. This does not always work in the online world, however. Craig Martelle (founder of the 20booksto50k group) is well known as a military SF author. When he rolled out his sword and sorcery novel, Black Heart of the Dragon God, it did not perform as he’d hoped with his digital readership—his military SF readers would not cross over that far from genre distinctions. But at live events? He sold out of it at his Alaska comic-con appearance.

Regarding crossover markets, Craig notes: “those people [at comic-con]are the target audience… but it’s different from my main audience, which is into both sci-fi and thrillers. I get more crossover there, a lot more crossover. Just understand the demographics of your readership.” He suggests the wisdom of conducting a poll of your readership, something that is easily done through your newsletter subscribers. He also notes that he could absolutely sell more books like that online, but not without building a new reader base, something that would mean rebuilding/starting from the ground up.

Outcomes:

You should have an idea of what your likely sales outcomes are based on the show. In Sell More Books at Live Events, I break down live events based on size and what kind of numbers and expectations I can build around the attendance expectations. If I market well, have a good booth appearance, and if the show is well run, I know with a pretty good accuracy rating how many books I will sell compared to the number of event visitors.

A little research goes a long way. I have looked into different events that looked like great opportunities and then bypassed them, seeing red flags that steer me away. Some look better than they are and some I know would simply not translate as sales. Some are the equivalent to the introductory story (all-genre book sales.)

Know the Event

You want to estimate how many you can reasonably sell so that you can best prepare for the event. Key is knowing the expected attendance, kind of event, genres that attendees might read, and knowing if attendees are geared toward spending money or simply taking in the events experiences. The best metric is to have visited the event before, or pick the brain of a previous vendor or guest. You can also make some helpful assumptions with a little online research and asking questions to the event organizers.

This is tied closely to the event outcomes point mentioned above and is the gray area bleeding into the next field, knowing your audience. All the data and metrics in the world won’t help you if you don’t understand who the people are that you’re trying to sell books to.

Know your Audience: The RPG Method

I was at a book marketing meet-up several years back when I heard another author suggest we look at our market as a single, ideal person. Distill your readership into a person, create a dossier for him or her. More than their likes and dislikes, though what is their marital status, how many kids do they have, do they rent or own, urban or rural?

The exercise is great because in thinking through those details, you are asking for character information, a fleshed out and usable backstory, as if that character could be written into a fiction world. For me, this seems easiest to do as a Character Sheet from a role-playing game.

Don’t just make a type of person. Create an actual person. Imagine your ideal reader and tell us about him or her. You can feel free to be even more descriptive than what you see here:

Here’s the point of all of this: if you can think of your ideal reader as a person you can ask yourself where he or she will be, what are his or her habits, what other things interest them that allow you to look for cross-promotional opportunities.

Really, what you are doing is the exact same thing that Facebook does when it markets to people. One way to advertise is to feed several hundred (or many times that number) emails into an advertisement with them to create a look-alike audience. This is useful because, if they are all your readers they will have you in common. The algorithms will employ dark sorcery and some math, which are basically the same thing, and then create an audience set to show your ad to. It will do this same sort of thing looking for what interests they have in common, in addition to you, in order to most effectively market

At the end of the day, Facebook is free because it is such a high-powered marketing device. Sure you can drive a Ferrari at only 20 mph, like most of us do on the social media platform, but there are some folks who rev the engine and really move. Our in-person marketing endeavors ought to be the same. And it has a plus side: it doesn’t cost you money every time someone clicks or stands too long at your table.

Regardless if you’re doing online/digital marketing or in-person selling, do your homework and you’ll sell more books!

Recap on Lake Geneva’s Dragon Days event

I attended Dragon Days, a new show in Lake Geneva, WI (where Dungeon’s and Dragons was invited). I was a vendor and entertainer… here’s how it went:

Let’s talk about Dragon Days…

Dragon Days Fantasy Festival is a 3-day festival celebrating Lake Geneva as the “Birthplace of Fantasy” and recognizing Lake Geneva resident Gary Gygax’s role as the “Wizard of Lake Geneva” who created Dungeons & Dragons.

Dragon Days will be a citywide festival with several venues throughout Lake Geneva. The sites include Elm Park (locally known as Library Park), the Geneva Theater, the Geneva Lake Museum, 330 Center Street, the Birthplace of D&D, the Lake Geneva Public Library, the American Legion Hall, and Horticultural Hall.

The 2023 show was a “year-0.” This was something of a dress rehearsal meant to work out the bugs before making a major push and ensure excellence at the big 2024 show. The event will be city-celebration of the influence of Gary Gygax and the funds generated will go to support the Gygax Memorial Fund, which is a nonprofit organization. 2024 will mark the 50th anniversary of D&D and will be a greatly celebrated milestone in the gaming industry. I was lucky enough to hear about this show from one of the festival promoters due to my connections in the gaming world (that, and as an entertainer I was hired to open and close the day’s activities with some rousing tunes on my great highland bagpipes.)

From a vendor’s perspective:

It’s important to bear in mind that October can be a difficult time for a show given weather concerns, especially since this show as outdoor components. At its heart, it’s a hybrid ren-fest/gaming convention. To my knowledge, nothing quite like it exists anywhere else, which gives it a unique appeal. This year (2023) saw it with near-Noahic levels until Sunday morning.

I am a fantasy and sci-fi author and I work with a game company that owns the rights to one of the later TSR properties (I write the fantasy novels in their setting.) Because I know the game very well, I sometimes help run game demos and do pitchwork for the Dragon Dice game. That said, our display is pretty awesome and so I went and ran two tables, (mine and the Dragon Dice table… I do also sell the game and do demos when I do renaissance festivals, but we wanted an official presence at this show so we went the whole 9 yards.)

Something to note about this show is that there are multiple locations, much like the Gencon of old which this show pays much homage to (and you’ll get the full rundown on if you do the tour of the Birthplace of D&D, but more on that later.) I don’t know a lot about the layout for next year, but I know the traffic push will improve for next year. It was the sticky wicket for me this year.

I think I would have had sales similar to a smallish renfest if I had set up over in that part of town with the tent vendors; I opted instead to use one of the buildings with game demos, which was a collaborative effort with the local library (which has a neat TSR book section that you have to see.) The weather finally turned nice for Sunday, but I didn’t setup. There was a snafu/miscommunication somewhere that made me unable to sell books that day, which was an annoyance for only about 10 minutes. It only took a moment to see it as a blessing in disguise. It allowed me to see the show from both a vendor’s and an attendee’s viewpoint, and I think I got to see everything since I was not tied to my vending and demo table.

If I ball parked the attendance, I would guess it was around 1100-1500. Probably only a couple hundred of those people knew about the event in advance, and the rest just stumbled into it. The renfest parts lined a few sidewalks that make up the city walking path around the lake; it’s a very tourist-area and the entertainers, like myself playing bagpipes, drew over many people to check out the event and those folks learned about the Gygax Memorial Fund, and many learned about Lake Geneva’s connection to the game for the first time. Though they were mostly casual browsers, the people were buying, even in the rain… that’s the funny thing about tourist towns. (But also note that almost all parking must be paid for, even on weekends. I saw meter maids issuing tickets on a Sunday morning, so plan for that expense—parking is a small fee vs a ticket.)

I was stationed in the furthest building away from the main festival area on the 1st day, and there were less than 100 people through the door to what was a game demo hall in the Legion. There were maybe 30 people through the door (weather and the low-key nature of doing a Year-0 event were factors, but I wasn’t there just to sell… I wanted to be a part of something—to help find the bugs so we could make sure that 2024’s D&D 50th anniversary celebration goes off without a hitch. That said, if you’re reading this, you be wondering how you can get involved as a vendor and be looking for some info to help you decide if attending as a merchant is a good fit for you, and so I’ll give you some numbers.

Of that small crowd in the Legion Hall, I sold $250 worth of books and that amount again of gaming supplies in just the 1 afternoon. My vendor’s perspective might have more bearing if you had some details about me to gauge metrics… I sell at 40ish conventions/festivals per year at shows from 300-110,000 attendees. For a show about this size I would expect to sell about 900-1,500 worth of merchandise (I talk lots about data and vendors metrics in this book), so I’m very optimistic that I would have done similar numbers or even much better had I vended both days (I effectively did $500 in 4 hrs with only a couple dozen people as my buying audience due to mitigating factors—meaning I think I could have sold well beyond that and think that this could be one of my top two highest ROI shows next year). As a vendor, if you sell to fantasy or gaming markets, this show will be a must.

From an attendee’s perspective:

Back to that blessing in disguise. I got to see it all! Let’s talk about that Legion Hall. A bunch of old school folks hung out there all day, and it was mostly a gathering to play casual games and converse with awesome people. I sat for like 15 minutes and chatted with Jeff Easely (one of the D&D artists who, alongside Larry Elmore, is responsible for some of the most iconic fantasy artwork ever.) I played a Tom Wham (Snit’s Revenge) designed board game with Alex Gygax, Gary’s youngest son and chatted with Heidi Gygax Garland, Gary’s third child, who was demoing Shadows of Lake Geneva, a new game she and her husband are about to launch. My friend Jeri Shepherd was there running some programming relevant to storytelling and gaming, both and her events were split between Legion Hall and the library, which is adjacent to the main festival area.

The library has a curated fantasy section with many pieces coming from the D&D and TSR settings.

The snafu earlier mentioned, plus coming a day early, allowed me to do it all (my crew of volunteers and I even helped unload straw bales and helped the setup team construct a giant maze for a dungeon crawl that was super cool—both kids and adults were doing it!) Seriously, it’s worth the cost of admission $15 a day or $20 for both. Do both, because you’ll want to visit all the places.

One place that wasn’t on the official map (probably because it is a regular business) was the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum. Because we arrived a day in advance, we went to do the tour, which was $2. The museum isn’t large, but it is interesting. And heck, you can’t even get a coffee for $2. They had some amazing pieces, and they also had gaming items for sale.

Neat things to check out from the program guide is the Birthplace of D&D: the house where Gary Gygax invented D&D and where TSR was headquartered for many years. The owner has a great story and you can visit the old basement where all the gaming magic happened and even rent the dining table space to have your own game.

The interior locations had historical displays from TSR’s early days (and from before D&D was made, even) which were curated by Paul Stormberg (the D&D historian and owner of the Collector’s Trove.) A huge highlight of the event for me was playing Chainmail with Paul Stormberg in Gary Gygax’s basement (Chainmail is a miniatures game that predates TSR and D&D and was perhaps the game’s direct predecessor out of which D&D evolved into its first incarnation.)

The city museum provides a tour for $16, which includes a specific room for Gygax’s creations, but admission is free during Dragon Days, showing the town’s spirit of cooperation, and they sell a dungeon crawl-style map of the town which lists local sites of significance for those doing a Gygax pilgrimage. Like the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum, it is not a huge display. In fact, I know some gamers who probably own more items—but what is impressive is the size and importance of every piece inside. Anybody can own stuff… but this is the superb, curated works Gygax and his friends were responsible for bringing to life.

Another side note is that this was an incredibly family friendly event. There were little girls and boys doing the dungeon maze while dressed as knights, princesses, and unicorns, as well as parents dressed like wizards and rangers.

I was impressed with the dedication of everyone involved and really believe this show is going to be an epic event. The 50th Anniversary, which will be the official year 1 for Dragon Days, is going to be awesome. I’m certain things are going to fill up fast, so even though this article is being posted about 350 days in advance, it may be worth reaching out now and getting information on being a vendor.

Huge Science Fiction Bundle!

Hey all! I’m honored once again to be included in a StoryBundle. This time it’s a sci-fi pack–get a ton of awesome books for a big deal… for a limited time:https://storybundle.com/scifi 

This new StoryBundle will take your autumn, and your e-reader, to the far edges of the universe. Curated by bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson, this cosmic batch of eighteen books showcases the range of epic science fiction, from galactic empires to time-travel adventures to alien invasions. These books are from classic award-winning science fiction authors and hot new indie authors.

  

This bundle is available only for a limited time via http://www.storybundle.com. It allows easy reading on computers, smartphones, and tablets as well as Kindle and other ereaders via file transfer, email, and other methods. You get a DRM-free .epub for all books!

It’s also super easy to give the gift of reading with StoryBundle, thanks to our gift cards – which allow you to send someone a code that they can redeem for any future StoryBundle bundle – and timed delivery, which allows you to control exactly when your recipient will get the gift of StoryBundle.

Why StoryBundle? Here are just a few benefits StoryBundle provides.

Get quality reads: We’ve chosen works from excellent authors to bundle together in one convenient package.Pay what you want (minimum $5): You decide how much these fantastic books are worth. If you can only spare a little, that’s fine! You’ll still get access to a batch of exceptional titles.Support authors who support DRM-free books: StoryBundle is a platform for authors to get exposure for their works, both for the titles featured in the bundle and for the rest of their catalog. Supporting authors who let you read their books on any device you want—restriction free—will show everyone there’s nothing wrong with ditching DRM.Give to worthy causes: Bundle buyers have a chance to donate a portion of their proceeds to the Challenger Center for Space Education!Receive extra books: If you beat the bonus price, you’ll get the bonus books! 

An Early Mistake Comes Back to Haunt Me

Don’t be like me. Be smarter at the start of your author journey.

Actually, the fact that you’re here reading blogs like mine demonstrates that you are.

I’ve written a lot about pricing and how to both maximize profits and also be flexible enough within the market to capture as many sales as possible. I wrote a whole book about it (it’s free, btw… just click here.)

One thing I do very well in my author business is selling books directly to people. I do a lot of shows every year, book signings, etc. I’m good enough at it that I meet my full-time living doing this. If I would’ve had some foresight, I would have been thinking about market demands and inflation much earlier on as I created covers. My early mistake was to do many of my covers with the price printed on the back near the UPC. You know, like with the bigger companies do. Audiences are predisposition for checking there for a price.

A few things have happened in the last couple of years. The entire nation shut down. The economy went up and then tanked. Housing markets have gone bananas and in both directions. Banks have collapsed. Inflation has run away like crazy and devalued the buying power of US dollars.

Amid all of that craziness, the two biggest print on demand sources for independent authors have raised their prices. During COVID, when supply lines tightened, Ingramspark increased their printing costs to authors. Twice. Near mid-2023, Amazon finally increased their print costs for the first time since re-organizing under the KDP-print label after ditching the Createspace name.

The mistake I made was to print prices on my covers. Perhaps a bigger mistake was to not make frequent stops at different bookselling outlets to keep my prices fresh. In my free book, Pricing Hacks, which is linked above, I use a bunch of data and show how independent authors can never out to discount the big-box stores and make a profit. But Indies also do not need the same kind of return on investment to make profits. That’s the whole point of POD. But that does not mean we should lose money that buyers are willing to give us.

Amid all of this economic change, inflation, and print price increases, I was in a giant club/discount store. It was a Sam’s Club, but Costco would be comparable as well. They had a small book section, and I picked up a few titles that were recognizable: these are books that had already sold enough to hit bestseller lists. They were the larger 6 x 9 format rather than the typically discounted smaller reads. One was 18.99, and the other was 19.99… Both were fiction and similar genres to what I write.

That got me thinking, my books at 16.99 needed to be at least a dollar higher. In fact, one of my books I repriced to 18.99. If nothing else, I’m trying to not lose dollars to both inflation into increased print costs. But also, I shouldn’t be leaving money on the table from looking at this as a business.

Occasionally, a customer will see a price tag of a dollar or two lower on a cover and will ask why their total is different when they’re checking out at my till. I’ll explain the increase in print costs and inflation to them. I’ve never had one complain and demand the lower price. I’ve seen a few customers think about it (you know that look they get on their face when they think someone is taking advantage of them.) When I explain it I do so in such a way that mentions how I’m the little guy taking on the big publishing companies and how I don’t have the same buying power is them but have managed to keep my books comparably priced and I thank them for supporting the arts and local writers. Sometimes it actually turns into a tip.

Regardless, don’t be like me. Be smart. Make a book prices evergreen by leaving MSRPs off of your cover.

My New Series is Launching Now!

I have, in the past, discouraged the idea of launching books on kickstarter. However, ever since Brandon Sanderson made it sexy, I think there has been renewed interest in the platform by outsiders and there have been a lot of folks sharing their knowledge about how to launch genre-niched books effectively.

That said, I’ve been following their advice with great interest and I’m launching my new series with the help of backer funding. Please click here and check out the campaign which is live, now!

Please join as a backer and get some cool stuff with it!

My upcoming travel schedule for 2023 events

 

Hey everyone! A lot of you have met me at book events, comic conventions, festivals, etc. I thought I would share my 2023 schedule with you all in case you wanted to get a book signed–or even better: maybe you’d want to swap a book for an opportunity to crash on your couch or guest bed? Whenever I don’t have to book hotel rooms it always helps me decide to return to those shows for repeat appearances. If you’re within 45 minutes of any of these shows and can offer a spot just shoot me an email.

jan 6-8 fanexpo new orleand new orleans
5-Feb quadcon cedar rapids. IA
feb 18-19 quadcon peoria, IL
feb 24-26 gamicon geranium cedar rapids, ia
mar 4-5 peoriacon peoria, IL
Mar 11-12 quadcon davenport, IA
Mar 17-19 Planet Comiccon Kansas City, MO
Mar 31-Apr2 C2E2 Chicago, IL
April 1-2 quadcon des moines, IA
1-Apr RodCon cedar falls, ia
May 5-7 Demicon des moines, IA
may 20-21 sleepy hollow renfest des moines, IA
May 19-21 quantum con rochester, mn
May 19-21 anime central rosemount il
June 2-3 MInnesotaCon minneapolis
June 3-4 Des Moines Con des moines, IA
june 16-18 popcon louisville louisville ky
june 17-18 quadcon cedar rapids
June 21-25 Origins game fair Columbus, OH
july 6-9 convergence minneapolis
july 15-16 collectacon kansas city, mo
July 28-30 anime iowa coralville, ia
Aug 3-6 gencon indianapolis, IN
August 10-13 fanexpo Chicago, IL
August 25-27 Popcon Indy indianapolis, IN
aug31-sep 4 Dragon Con atlanta, GA
sep 15-17 Cincinnati Comic Book Expo cincinnati, OH
oct 1-3 Siouxpercon Sioux Falls, SD
oct 19-22 gameholecon madison, wi
nov 3-5 twin cities con minneapolis, mn
Dec1-3 Galaxycon columbus, OH

I’ll be doing more events than this, but it’s a pretty good start!

How to hit the bestseller List

You may have heard about authors hitting a bestseller list helped launch the career or helped them make the millions of dollars. You might have also heard about all sorts of corruption, games, and loopholes or manipulation that people put upon the lists such as the New York Times bestseller list or the USA Today bestseller list.

Because of so many people taking advantage of certain rules and loopholes or exploiting the system (Lani Sarem’s attempt to cheat her way into the list with Handbook for Mortals is a famous one,) a lot of authors barely even bother with tracking the best seller’s list… however, it is something of a Write of Passage (see what I did there? Please don’t unfollow me.)

Nicholas Erik (an author I follow) writes much about the why and how over at his blog post here. But to sum it up, having a best selling book under your belt allows you to brag a little. And I really like bragging. But more importantly, it lends a certain amount of credibility to all your future titles and can open other doors for you as well.

It’s also not an impossible task for any author who knows how to leverage marketing results and knows how to plan ahead (do work.) Here is what you need to do to hit the bestsellers list…

First and foremost, I want to know that I am using this to hit the bestsellers list right now. I don’t beg a lot, but I am asking anybody reading this in 2022 to click this link right here and pick up a 99c copy of a big book bundle I’m in.

Understand the rules of hitting the bestsellers list. The near times in the USA Today lists are slightly different, and all focus on the USA Today list.Only US sales countsales are counted in a one week period from Monday to Sundaypresales all count as sales made during the week of release (that makes them very important!)The minimum price is $0.99there are minimum sales numbers you have to hit on platforms outside of Amazonyou need to sell about 5000 copies over the course of one week and those sales have be made on multiple platformssales must he made to different individuals (that’s the controversy with Handbook for Mortals I mentioned above, you can’t simply buy 5000 copies of your own book)

Do the work (but share the load

A lot of independent writers will crowd source there workload. When you have 10 to 20 authors each with large newsletters, some of them will have their own blogs, many will have different avenues of advertising and platforms on a variety of social media. When you leverage all of these authors doing work on all the different platforms expands your total footprint.

There is also a joint fund those writers pay into in order to pay for different advertising packages such as Facebook, Amazon, newsletter stacks, bookbub, and the like.

While there is a lot of work, it’s not highly intensive since it takes place over the course of months or a year. I mentioned that prerelease time during which you will try to get as many preorders as possible. All your preorders counter sales made during release week provided to new work. The danger and that is that people will slack off and not taken as seriously as they need to (some of us tend to be procrastinators by nature.)

Ride the wave.

That last couple weeks will be pretty intense. While it will be a lot of consistent and constant work in the background for many months leading up to launch week, the couple weeks beforehand will be heavily focused on preparing for the launch. You will have to beg in all likelihood. Unless you have a few authors in your group who are of fairly high renown.

Authors who use a low strategy and brainpower leading up to this point will have spent a year or more prior to making a run at the bestsellers list with preparation. What I mean by this is that you will have attempted to build a solid newsletter list and engage their subscribers. You also will have built up a social media platform that’s relevant and learned the tools you need to communicate and engage with the audience that hitting the bestsellers list to provide you with. If you don’t do this, and you join a group of authors who want to hit the list, you will probably drag them down. If there are more than a couple of you who desperately want to be in the bestsellers list but don’t want to do the work and have not prepared properly, it just might spell doom for your chances.

Working together to leverage your results is something we call in the Indy world “List Aiming.” Generally speaking, we understand that the benefits of hitting a list and being able to leverage that with smart marketing in the future makes all the work worth it; the list-aimed work generally nets a contributor less than half a cent, so authors need to understand that it isn’t a get-rich scheme—you have to leverage it for some future goal. The list aiming set I’m currently in will launch my new series starter so that it hopefully releases as a standalone book already as a USA Today bestseller.

Please help me make that a reality and invest 99c in a massive book bundle that is sure to have something you’re going to like. Just click the graphic below and you’ll have some buying options and will have made a difference in whether or not I can call myself a best-selling novelist!

Author Access, Value, and Thick Skin

 

I do a lot of conventions where I find other authors. At almost every show, if there are at least a half-dozen authors, at least one of them is charging too little for his or her books.

I know a lot of folks undercut themselves on pricing models. I had a friend who owned a coffee shop and ran it for years and years. He always felt he couldn’t increase prices because people would complain. But he had the best coffee around. When the local gas station raised prices on their coffee, people didn’t complain, they just paid an extra .30 for crappy coffee and went about their day. I think there’s an issue of access at play. My friend would would have to hear someone grumble.

As an author, we don’t like raising prices because we are going to hear about it. People have access to us—either from newsletter subscribers, social media, direct sales, or Goodreads/reviews on Amazon or elsewhere. The only answer for negative people is thick skin. Your book will not be a good fit for everyone and you could give it away and still get 1 star reviews—your books’ quality and salability have much less to do with price than authors realize.

But here’s the thing: Everyone is grumbling and all the time. It’s usually not something you can do anything about. You or I can’t change the fact that the cost of paper is rising, or that inflation is killing buying power.

But you can be out ahead of the trends with your pricing models…

You can know why you charge what you do for your books so that you’re able to explain to readers why production costs increase, what your copies cost to produce versus a big 5 publisher’s, and how your book is amazing because you’re the creative force and not some suit in a high rise at Penguin Random House or Simon & Schuster… (there are many ways to add value—including being small.)

Back to the author(s) charging too little at shows. Very often, by the end of the show, they look frustrated, especially if they were within sightline of my booth where I do a lot of business. I don’t outsell every author at any given show, but if I’m not, I am probably in the top tier of sellers and earners, and that can lead to frustration when other authors compare what they are doing versus my models. An implicit question of quality will come up when an author wonders, “Why did they buy his book for eighteen bucks when mine is only twelve?”

A while ago, I did a little show in Wisconsin and had a chat with an author about pricing. They had a book around that price point and I encouraged them to sell value instead of trying to be some kind of “deal.” Being the king or queen of discounts is a race to the bottom.

This author’s book was technically a higher quality than mine. I wasn’t struck by a great cover and I didn’t read it so can’t tell you about formatting, editing, or writing quality, but the book was produced by IngramSpark whereas mine were done by KDPprint (Amazon). Qualitatively, IS has brighter inks, a little better lamination and cover colors, better spine binding, and is a slightly higher quality book. And they cost more by about 10%.

When you try to appeal by being “the cheapest,” you get into the Wal-Mart mentality. I can’t think of anyone who is drawn to Wal-Mart because of the quality.

I have found it to be true that interested readers are least concerned about the price. It’s simply not a major deciding factor in their decision. Does it help? It can… but not in a secondary manner. If you convince a reader your book is perfect for them, they are going to do what it takes to buy it (now, or later, online or at a future event). If they are ready to buy now and there’s a bundle deal to buy through a series (discount)? That is where the deal should be placed to maximize your revenue.

Recently, I produced a guide to help authors, especially Indies, perform their best when selling at live shows. I highly recommend picking up a copy of Sell More Books at Live Events to step up your game and join my relevant Facebook group to ask questions about live events, network with others, etc. Perhaps most relevant to this topic is the pricing piece. I offer a free guide titled Pricing Hacks, which is available on all platforms. It goes into deeper detail on how to maximize your profits and sell more books and is a supplement to Sell More Books, but can be read by itself. In my experimenting with price models, I was already slightly more expensive than most of the other authors I do events with… and I just recently raised my prices on my most popular titles a second time. I sell my most popular book for $2 more than what it was initially priced at upon release a year ago.

Authors need to watch trends and stay one step ahead of the curve to avoid suffering a double whammy when it comes to inflation. By that, I mean that your dollars will already stretch further (the price of inflation) but if your cost of purchasing copies for resale increases/product cost at the POD distributor, then you’re losing money if you don’t raise your price, and the smaller portion shrinks its power due to inflation. Here’s what I mean: let’s say your book sells for $15 and you think it could or should go to 16.99; this book costs $5 to make, meaning you’re making $10 profit when you sell a copy to a co-worker. The holidays hit and there’s a hypothetical paper shortage increasing production costs, and inflation is happening. Your book now costs $6 to make and with inflation averaging about 8.5% your remaining $9 has only about $8 worth of buying power. A price correction to 16.99 means you hold roughly even with the market.

Not that you should change your price immediately or every time gas prices jump. I’m not a doom and gloom advocate, but when the big printers pass on the increased costs at the POD, then it’s time for authors to consider following suit. I would strongly advise walking around a few bookstores and watching the price of new releases in your genre and make sure you’re still remaining within the wheelhouse of pricing norms. But if you’ve been underpriced for a while, it’s the right time for a correction.

I mentioned access at the beginning of this article. Personal access carries an implicit value. More than ever, readers want that access and connection to the author. Buying a book and getting it autographed creates an experience unparalleled by pulling a copy off the shelf at B&N or clicking to buy on Amazon.

Access = Value

Sure, you might hear a complaint or two, but you’re going to get those, regardless. The important thing is that you know your worth as an artist and believe that your work has value. I have written before about a rude guy at Chicago Comic Con who told me “Nah, a book’s not worth $15.” He was carrying a plate with two hot dogs and beer… the concession stand was selling hot dogs for $16 and I said, “Sir, please don’t tell me that the year of my life I spent on this is not worth the price of lukewarm hot dog.”

Actually, I smiled and told him to have a nice day, anyhow. But inside I was filled with snark… I’m simply wise enough to that people sometimes come back. But I learned my lesson previously. I know my worth. If you can zero in on yours and know it, really know it, then you’ll have an easier time dialing in on the right price for your book—and I’d bet it’s at least a little higher than you’re charging currently.

Indie Authors, want to sell books inside established retail chains? There are lots of opportunities! (part 1)

The internet really is a clickhole!

With having a new release coming out soon (a project that aims to help indie authors learn how to maximize their sales efforts and sell more books at live events) I stumbled onto a resource that authors might find interesting. There are a number of programs out there which will allow authors to set up a table and connect with readers, usually in order to sell books. Search my blog archives for programs within Barnes and Nobles and on how to do book signings. Plus, there are ways to set this up with Costco and other big box stores as well, although the process is very involved, enough that most authors simply don’t attempt to do it.

The program I just learned about takes care of all that for you, and provides tons of opportunity—click through to get details and see where it’s offered.

I’m writing a couple part series on the topic (selling within other retail environments) since one of my main thrusts as an author-mentor is helping writers find ways to connect with shoppers who may be readers and connect them to a book and reader base… while I’ve covered the idea of selling in Barnes and Nobles stores before and write about it within the pages of The Indie Author’s Bible as well as in this blog, selling inside that particular chain might not be everybody’s cup of tea—plus, a person shouldn’t put all their eggs in one basket.

In doing research I kind of stumbled onto a program called Authors in Grocery Stores. Participating in the program allows authors to set up a book signing table in participating grocery store chains and greet/sell to shoppers there that day.

I reached out to Raymond Vincent Depew who runs the program. He was an indie author who participated in the program, saw the value in it, and eventually took it over when his predecessor retired. The grocery store tie-in was especially interesting to me because of a personal connection. One wouldn’t think that grocery stores are a great place to meet readers, I mean, all of our author-ads research says to limit the playing field and go super narrow in targeting, but I can recall purchasing a number of encyclopedias as a child with my mother on weekly shopping trips when she would buy me a new volume each week (which brought back all the feels in Stranger Things season 4, of course.) I actually used that memory as the basis for one of my main characters strongest childhood memories in The Shadowless which is a critical plot point.

Authors in Grocery Stores has been around for 20 years and operates in TX, MI, IN, KY, OH, CO, and LA. Those participating can set their own schedule, meaning they can pick any day of the week, so authors doing weekend events can pick up mid-week sales this way by setting up a date 2 weeks in advance and then notify the program which will make all the necessary arrangements (though weekends are still the most optimal days). Authors bring books which pass through the store’s registers, report sales, and the then the program cuts checks back to them for the their share of the proceeds; they keep 62% of the sales.

There are some membership fees to participate. Those funds pay in to a group insurance policy which covers the participants and offsets their obligation to otherwise carry private business/event insurance (something that I often have to get for events I do, and that costs about $200 per month to secure a short term policy, per site I am selling at.) The fees are a $75 annual membership plus a 1-time charge of $25 per ISBN. Participants also have access to some professional discounts, much like those gained with ALLi membership.

They vend in Krogers, King Soopers, and City Market grocery stores in the above states. (Colorado’sCity Market is a new market for them with 154 stores coming on board very recently.)

The program updates the list of states and regions on where can vend at their website:

https://authorsingrocerystores.com/

and also an their FB
https://www.facebook.com/National-Authors-in-Grocery-Stores-Program-A-Snapbookllc-Company-107575368746492

Meanwhile, also check out my new book and other resources and tools for selling books and publishing at my website: https://www.authorchristopherdschmitz.com/authorservices