Christopher D. Schmitz's Blog, page 33

State of Writing

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My new Dekker’s Dozen story is written! Dropped about 18k words to begin a trilogy of novellas. I should round it out to something like 20,000 words by Christmas and release it to my mailing list. Hopefully I can complete another few stories in the future that will sync up the time travel elements between Waxing Arbolean Moon and the Last Watchmen. Weeds of Eden is a straight up adventure in space that lets the characters unfold. (My goal is to lump in Arbolean Moon with these three stories and eventually push it into another Dekker’s Dozen paperback before beginning another adventure based on the healed timeline elements after the Divine Machine’s correction noted at the end of the Last Watchmen (which has timeline implications to the Dozen to future stories and this mini-trilogy fills in the events just prior to Last Watchmen as a prequel but also allows for a new story to follow in the wake of its events.)

I think I’m getting the hang of Scrivener, at least the basic functionality (I haven’t really had to compile anything yet except for a few test exports.)

I was hard pressed to get it done considering I logged like 20+ hrs on the road last week–most of which was wheeltime, so  not much opportunity to write. Overall, not much vacating happened on my vacation (pretty typical of me). I will probably take a break next week and work on some personal projects until next week. If I do anything creative it will be to look into cover art and perhaps keep plugging away at the outlines for the Hidden Rings series.

Pros and Cons/Indie vs. Traditional Publishing

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Traditional Publishing is that world where a writer submits his book to a trade publishing house and gets a “book deal.” The book is revised, contracts signed, and then the publisher is responsible for all of the production costs, distribution, and sales. Based on their pay structure, they cut the author a royalty check based on the contract. Up until Indie publishing became a real thing, this was always known simply as “Publishing.”

Indie Publishing is a world that lets a person color outside of the lines. It usually refers to self-published writers who are effectively their own publisher doing all of the things a trade house would do, but with stylistic freedom to try new things. This may also include many smaller Indie Publishing Houses. We rarely use the word “self-publish” because of how stigmatized the word has become (usually reserved more for Vanity Press publishers.) Indies reserve complete creative and financial control of their books.

Vanity Publishing is the kind of press that sets up just to print a book that someone wants to see in print to make themselves feel good (vanity/self-validation), give as a gift or for something like a school or church fundraiser, etc. These places serve an actual purpose (making church cookbooks or printing school yearbooks) but often disguise themselves as traditional publishers, indie publishers, or “hybrid publishers” in order to prey upon Indie authors. Vanity Publishers make their money off of the author rather than off of the book (but still hope to skim a little off the top as well.) Avoid any “publisher” who wants to sell you a “publishing package” or makes their money off of author services. If you can’t outsource all of your needs where they have fees (editing, cover design, formatting, ebook conversion, promo materials, etc.) OR they apply intense pressure to sign their contract, then a publisher is likely a vanity publisher in disguise. We won’t dignify them with our comparison and they should be avoided.

The difference between Indie and Traditional might be something like being on a payroll versus being a private contractor. When you have a boss, manager, or foreman you have to do things his or her way. They may or may not like your own creative approach to the job. A private contractor can say, “This is how I’m doing it—if you don’t like it, don’t hire me for your next job.” They only get to eat when they work, so they have to stay hungry to make the house payment.

Here are some strengths and weaknesses of each:

Pros:

Traditional

Prestige and Validation

Store distribution is easy

Work with a professional team

No upfront fees/costs

Possible advance on royalties

Literary prize potential

Easier to become a “name brand” author
Indie

Creative control

High royalty rates

Quick Payments

Faster time to market

Control over format, rights, etc.

 

Cons:

Traditional

Very slow process

Loss of creative control

Low royalty rates

Lack of significant marketing help

Possible contract issues
Indie

Do everything yourself

No prestige

Difficulty getting on store shelves

Assume all financial risk

Lack of any marketing

 

Every author has to decide what he or she really wants out of being an author. For many, the Indie route will be a stepping stone that helps build a platform for success, for others it is the only way they would ever want to go. Some are “traditional only.” All of those are personal choices and perfectly fine. Many well-known authors, choose a hybrid approach (no, not those fake vanity publishers). They will have some self-published books along with some traditional titles to maximize how much they make from their labors. Think about it, people don’t buy books based on the publishing house—they buy based on the author—his or her name is the brand. Some of these authors will even sign contracts for a book’s US rights and then use the indie route for all worldwide, overseas sales to maximize all marketing opportunities and capitalize on consumer interest. Indies have to stay smart.

At the end of the day it boils down to a few things: creative control and money. And at least at some level, money is always important… you can negotiate creative aspects or walk away based on your heart… but money is more set in stone. Printers and distributors must get paid.

I know a few Indies who sell about a hundred books a month with their online sales. They’ve created a demand and an audience is responding. That is a pretty high number, to be honest, but it is perfectly achievable with a lot of sweat and tears. Indies make about $4 per book (an average I’ve found to be about right) across the 3 major mediums. That’s $4,800 per year and 1,200 books sold. A big name in writing might make over a dollar per book with a traditional press, but the more unknown authors make more like 75 cents per book. Those same sales numbers net the writer less than a grand… one of my traditional publishers made some contract changes saying it would be more profitable. Should have had an agent take a look—my royalties on my last check were about a quarter per book. The above numbers would earn me just three hundred bucks. For a year.

Everyone needs to make those decisions sooner and rather than later.

 

 

Review: The Scent of Rain

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Anne Montgomery’s The Scent of Rain is an all-too real story that chronicles the border-line Handmaid’s Tale that many young girls endure on the fringe elements of the LDS church.

Her characters are believable and relatable. From their initial introduction you can’t help but like Rose and Adan who are thrust together due to elements of their lives spinning out of control—but both desperately in search of escape and meet each other while doing just that.

While the book doesn’t dwell excessively on the details of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints church (the super-cringy cult one that marries off young girls to crusty old polygamists) it does bring up some of the issues regarding it within the context of the story. The truth doesn’t distract from the narrative and certainly lends to the villainy of the bad guys and pulls the reader into the POV of Rose and the societal dangers that she faces.

I don’t read much outside of my preferred genres, but this was one that interested me and struck a chord… and that was before I’d seen any of the Handmaid’s Tale.  It reminded me also a little bit of Electrick Children in all the right ways. It’s more than a coming of age story—for Rose and Adan, it’s a coming to life story.

While I got this book for free in exchange for an honest review I highly recommend the book. You can get a copy by clicking here.

State of Writing

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I’m feeling kinda sick this weekend–probably fatigue after a 3 day con and very little water. Sokay–ibuprofen, black coffee, and a metalcore playlist on youtube are all helping.

Nanowrimo sounds fun, but it’s not something I’m going to do this year. I am, however, using my November to get a new Dekker’s Dozen adventure completed (which I will get sent out to my SF reading list.)

I recently decided to learn Scrivener… as much as I hate learning new software when I have something I already prefer (Word) I decided to look into it because of the built in methods it uses for outlining a story and a strong outline is needed for my upcoming Myrddin the Cambion series–the plots from each book will have significant impact on each other and so I need to keep my deets straight. Scrivener is only slightly more difficult to wrap your head around (I watched some youtube videos which helped me learn the system). I outlined one of the books and started sketching out the others when I decided I wanted to see it in action, for real. That’s what prompted the new Dekker’s Dozen story (which I’d been kicking around for a while anyways since so many people have been requesting it).

It started as one new adventure. yeah right… In the works now are three new adventures and probably a new novel. I’ll space them out and have no definite timeline for them except the first one (the first 3 are interlinked but will each be standalone stories–like separate episodes in the continuity.) The first will be released by Christmas. I dropped over 8,000 words on it since starting it on monday. I see no problem with finishing it by the weekend.

Secondary goals would be to also drop in on some libraries and continue plotting Myrddin the Cambion.

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Fun With Trolls

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Oh, trolls. I do get the occasional troll message. I guess I’m a bit thankful to Mr. johnnevada@aol.com for taking the time and effort away from Mom’s basement and lukewarm hot-pockets to become thoroughly acquainted with my books and locate my website in order to message me with his thoughts. They span from a detailed critique of my writing, cover art, and how only books by the big houses can be good and how I must be a cheapskate for not hiring Random House to publish me (I guess that’s how the industry works now).

Here, for you personal amusement is my latest troll. Bonus points if you read this rant aloud in the voice and accent of Moist from Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. I am glad that he has an in depth working knowledge of the publishing industry and can help right this sinking ship. At least this was good for a laugh… doubly so since he sent me a second email to reiterate that I am no good, not famous, have ugly nonsense books, and should never write again.

“I’m about to order your book but when i check your book in amazon your book are independent publishing or create space and I’m so disappointed if you are a good writer/author you will be in traditional publisher like Harper Collins / Penguin Random House / Hachette book group but I’m thinking why they will get your book since your books are nonsense. I guess you can not afford to publish your book in the publishing company that’s why you are looking for free. your not even a famous author and don’t think that you will be a famous your book is not good it’s ugly, not worth it for reading. you must stop writing nonsense books”

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A Fiery Crash-Course in Facebook Ads for Indie Authors

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I’ll be the first to admit that I struggle with Facebook Advertisements. We have a love hate relationship—mainly because once I think I’ve found something that works for me, my own hubris becomes my downfall. It is difficult to narrow down exactly what motivates consumers to make a purchase. I excel at this when face to face, but find using automated systems to grate my nerves. Alas, I cannot afford to spend 100% of my time on a sales floor, and so online advertising (Facebook being the primary method we will discuss) to be a necessity.

Before you begin—make sure that you have all of the necessary pieces in place. Before you wade into the choppy waters of Facebook Ads you should have already setup an author webpage, social media accounts (including an author one for Facebook, it must be different than your personal account or Facebook won’t give you access to ads,) an email service such as MailChimp or Constant Contact, and an optional blog.

Check your heart and head—are you purchasing ads to sell books and make money or are you trying to build something? Understand that if you are trying to make bank by selling your books, Facebook ads probably shouldn’t be your primary funnel. Effective ads are generally ones that help you break even and perhaps make a little profit. It has to be about more than the money—and if you are in charge of your own ads and promo as an author, then you’re probably a relatively unknown commodity for now, so building brand awareness is worth the risk levied by adverts and reduced profit margins (everyone’s got to pay the piper.)

Decide what you want to achieve—are you looking for more followers, email signups, drive website traffic, or are you trying to sell more copies of your book. I will concentrate on the latter for this article. Also, for the sake of keeping it easy, we won’t cover things like tracking conversions via pixel

Do your research—just like you’ve got to be in the right audience to sell your fantasy novel or your nonfiction “choose your own adventure” knitting challenge to a live audience, you’ve got to know as much about the demographic you plan to advertise to. Take advantage of the Audience Insight feature in Facebook’s ad tools to get (scarily) detailed information audience pools based on what they like and follow.

Cover appeal—as important as a book cover and back cover text is to your physical novel, appealing graphics and ad copy are equally vital to the success of an ad. If you choose to run ads, don’t do everything right and then drop the ball here—that amounts to a fumble on the one yard line. For graphics, make sure no more than 20% of your image is covered in text or the system will block it—be sure to set a hook with an amazing image that evokes emotion. For your ad copy, identify a pain to avoid or benefit to be gained by reading, use a call to action like “click to know more” or “sign up for mailing list,” and try to create a sense of urgency.

Know your numbers—do the math with me. Remember when I said to check your heart? Let’s check it against your wallet—by the time your book gets to the consumer, everyone will want to have gotten their cut. Let’s look at a hypothetical 300 page 6×9 novel.

Reader pays $15 for book on Amazon. Amazon takes $6 for distribution and shipping. Createspace takes about $4.50 for printing. You now have about $4.50 in royalties—you can about another $0.25 if you setup this sale via an Amazon Associates account, too. Facebook wants their advertisement money in the end.

For the sake of the math let’s assume a click costs you $0.20 and everything is typical about your budget and clickthrough averages for indie book ads. The average clickthrough rate is 0.2% and the average conversion rate is 1-2% (that’s one or two people buying your book for every hundred clicks). That’s not good, but at least we know where the norm is. You need to get $4.50 in order to break even with one sale, but at two-tenths of a percent, you will have spent $20 for every $7.36 made at an average 1.5% conversion rate (with Amazon Associates included) meaning you lost almost $15 trying to sell your book.

However, the low clickthrough rate means that for every book you sold, thousands and thousands of people had an ad on their screen, so at least there is some brand awareness being built on some deep level. But counting the cost is hard when it’s this difficult to make the numbers match up to simply break even.

Count the Cost—simply put, the conversion rate dictates your maximum spending if you insist on breaking even. To find that number, multiply your book’s profit ($4.50) by the average conversion rate (1.5%) to get the number of cents you would want to cap your CPC at (6.75 cents). Markets fluctuate and change regularly, each month (even weekly) you should take the temperature of the advertisement to see how well it is selling (though you may have to guess, since traffic sent to Amazon for sales is difficult to separate from all sales). If your book is converting sales at something closer to ten percent your breakeven point is closer to $0.45. Constantly keep an eye on your numbers so you don’t get hit with a giant bill and very little sales!

The How-To:

First, go to https://www.facebook.com/ads and click to create an ad. Select what you want your ad to do (send people to your link—either your website, privately hosted page, or an amazon URL from your Associates account).

Follow the prompts in the wizard that will help you build your ad. Pick your demographic and input their likes, interests, etc. You want a very specific audience (use the Audience Insight feature to find them) that will be interested in your book and also likely to purchase. You want your target audience somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people; stay within those bookends or risk becoming unheard on the low-end or white noise on the high-end.

Set your placements, budget, and ad delivery details and save the info. The next part is to input your graphic, ad copy, URL, and anything else. The trick is to balance the ad so it is highly appealing, intensely targeted, and doesn’t muddy the waters by overdoing it. It must be succinct and powerful.

Submit it when you are ready for it to go off to review to the Facebook Ad team for approval, and good luck. The turn-around is pretty quick. They want your money.

There are many bloggers and experts who advise steering clear of Facebook ads like they were a plague. Many have gone so far as to say that using Facebook ads to sell books is impossible to do without losing money. I see little results with them when I’m trying to push fiction, but do better than breaking even when I’m pushing my nonfiction, so there are some variables.

The jury is still out, and the market is constantly changing. Facebook ads are one tool in your marketing toolbox. I make the most sales when I’m selling person to person at events and make the most money when pushing self-published books that cost me less than five dollars to produce.  Perhaps online marketing will get better, easier, and more profitable… perhaps you will find the key to success and never have to leave your writing cave. Give it a try, but don’t jump in headfirst… wade in slowly. This lake’s got nasty surprises for the unwary.

Mary Hallberg’s State of Emergency gets characterization...

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Mary Hallberg’s State of Emergency gets characterization down right. It feels a lot like a meme I once read about playing D&D (the one with what we think it’ll be like and a pic of heroes from Lord of the Rings compared to what it’s really like: the cast from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.) State of Emergency is a far cry from Walking Dead, and that’s a good thing. There are way too many clones out there and this is a breath of fresh air in the zombie genre.

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While Dallas fighting off zombies with a pizza cutter might sound like we’re headed in straight-up Shaun of the Dead territory, it’s not quite an overt comedy, but it has its moments. Maybe I’d call it a blend of Walking Dead and Scott Burtness’s Monsters in the Midwest series.

The book is peppered with fun references if you’re a fan of the genre. Then again, maybe it’s just me, but there seem to be seamless little Easter eggs hidden though the book as nods to other great zombie and undead stories, (like how Dallas calls Ashleigh, Ash and Dallas’s name seems to draw from Zombieland’s nomenclature.)

It is a fun read and not nearly as heavy as I am Legends or the like—and though it has a teenage protagonist it didn’t feel as angsty and whiny as most YA stories have trended in recent years… I appreciated that.

If you’re up for a Halloween read this fall, consider picking up a copy. I got mine for free in exchange for an honest review. You can get it by clicking here.

State of Writing

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This coming week I’ve got to get edits back on Fear in a Land Without Shadows, and work on betas. Have any of my initial readers for Wolves of the Tesseract 2 finished? Email me!

I had a pretty great week all around last week. I have begun to learn how to use Scrivener and I see the potential (especially for editing and long term planning,) as huge… I had to do something to help me plot out the long and convoluted arcs and timetraveling nuances that comes from my upcoming project The Hidden Rings of Myrddin the Cambion which is essentially 6 stories written across 5 books which all interlink into one larger work (and I’m planning a couple tie-in characters that will link in our current Earth version in the Wolves of the Tesseract series.)

In order to really use Scrivener well I began a couple projects. I began to sketch up some outlines for Rings (starting with the last book first) and I began a new story, too. I logged over 2,000 words after outlining the first of three new Dekker’s Dozen stories which will potentially create a launching point to restart the timeline into a new universe following the end of The Last Watchmen (that sounds confusing, but makes sense if you read the story)… it includes some fun moments such as the birth of the romance between Dekker and Vesuvius… the eventual stabbing, and hopefully the giant plant monster and the orphanage (all events referenced in TLW).

Stranger Things 2 happened this week, plus I found a sweet score at a used book sale and picked up like 5 books I was missing from the Wheel of Time series (I’m waiting to read it until I have all the books collected in hardcover… just missing #4 The Shadow Rising and #7 Crown of Swords (but i have duplicates of 2 others.) If anyone wants to trade or donate, 4 or 7 let me know!

I want to finish the new Dozen story this week and I’d love to see some progress on my two novels in beta (TKR3 and WotT2) before I head out to Crypticon MPLS for the weekend. I’m taking a few days off this week and have almost 2 solid weeks of vacation after wed!

Taking Credit Cards (Square and PayPal)

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The future is now… except for some of the older crowd. Many people, even in the older/less technologically proficient crowd enjoy the ease and access of credit cards. Every day we become more and more of a cashless society. If you are at a book festival, signing, or author talk and don’t have the opportunity to process credit card transactions, you are limiting the number of books you can sell.

In the past, taking credit cards meant having merchant accounts, paying large fees, processing minimums, bulky equipment, and a lot of tracking and hassle that made it much too inconvenient for authors to deal with. Nowadays it’s simple. Even large segments of the “technophobic” crowd are passingly familiar with how to use online banking and run an iPad or android tablet. Luckily, that’s all that is required.

As a general rule of thumb, Paypal has proven that it lags behind Square and other physical methods of taking payments. It is still the standard for online purchases made person to person and for eBay transactions. Paypal is owned by eBay (or at least a member of the same circle of companies) and as such it’s important to remember that it operates as a financial institution but it is not one—that means it is not FDIC Insured, etc. They do take credit cards, but cards must be linked to accounts, etc. which can mean extra steps that make it highly inconvenient for casual shoppers who just want a quick and easy transaction (that ease and convenience is what attracts people in the first place.)

Square is a different animal altogether. It was created by its designers who couldn’t complete a transaction because the seller could not accept a credit card. With this in mind, it became a convenient way for people at swap meets, yard sales, etc. to accept credit cards. As a musician who played in a band that wanted to sell t-shirts at a merchandise booth it became an effective way to sell products to an increasingly cashless demographic.

Why you should accept credit cards:

Numbers vary, but I’ve heard it said that sales increase 20-25% or more when a seller accepts plastic; that number certainly helps pay for those transaction fees, most of which cost you mere pennies, and then some.

In addition to the financial motivation, there are other reasons. It legitimizes you as a business in the eyes of consumers. It levels the playing field with other vendors. It encourages impulse buying (what you want). It eliminates the risk of bad checks.

How Square works:

Other services are pretty similar, but I’ll discuss Square since I am familiar with it. More detailed info can be found at https://squareup.com.

Signup for a square account and link it to whatever existing bank account you want to receive payments from. Enter your address to get the card reader hardware mailed and download the software app to either your apple tablet or phone or your android tablet or phone. For simplicity, it’s best if you have run the app from a device that has a data service plan and location settings are turned on (as if you wanted to use a gps program). Using the app, sign in to the account you created with Square and you can take payments immediately!

There is a slightly higher fee to type in the card account number/info (when/if you can’t use the swiping device that plugs into your headphone jack) but it’s a hand feature in case you lose or forget it, or the card refuses to read when swiping. The app also has a bunch of neat features. I have all of my books’ prices saved so that I can easily tap each title to ring up the item; I also have my local sales tax rate saved in the settings to automatically add onto the total. If you don’t use these features you can always do the math and type in the amount you are charging and charge whatever amount is necessary. If you run all of your transactions through the software (including cash sales) it gives you a nice log to show sales amounts and numbers (with or without tax) which is nice if a vending event/location charges a percentage against your sales.

Other Alternatives:

I can’t speak to ease of use or reliability of these others, but Square is not alone in the services they provide. Here are a number of other companies that provide a similar service. Alternatively, many mobile phone companies also have their own service as well.

Clover Go

iZettle (for non United States users)

Paypal Here

Inner Fence

Spark Pay

Intuit GoPayment

Vend

Lightspeed

CardFellow

ChargePass

QuickBooks Payments

…and more.

Review: Blockbuster Branding

[image error]I don’t read lots of nonfiction, but I’ve been in a learning mood lately. Blockbuster Branding by Faith Faith has a few points to offer retailers and authors. Particularly in the aspect of naming your product, service, or book. While the book delves into a diet-version of the psychology it seems to spend a great amount of time trying to convince me to buy other products or services for brand marketing.

I got this book when it was free during a promo/free download period and agreed to review it for my blog at the author’s request. I’ve lately been reading up lots on branding and marketing, click funnels and sales/email automation in particular. Everything about this book felt like the author was trying to sell me on some other product or service (much like a click funnel or squeeze page might do to coerce the next step in a sale.) Maybe it’s how people write for sales, but it bothered me since this is a nonfiction book/how-to and I felt like there was more to the strategies… and I’d get it if I just buy the next book.

That’s not to say that there’s not information in the book. A lot of it is very basic (like naming strategies, phonetics, etc. But everyone needs to start at square one and it helps not to make an assumption that people have a basic understanding of branding/marketing.

Perhaps the strongest part of the book are the examples Faith uses to demonstrate marketing and branding techniques she is referring to. While this wasn’t a book that rocked my world, it might prove revelatory to someone relatively new to the business world or cutthroat world of street-level marketing and proves especially relevant to authors writing nonfiction (especially if you haven’t quite launched the book or brand just yet.)

You can check it out by clicking here and seeing if it’s the right type of book for you.