David Neth's Blog, page 3
November 5, 2016
Timeout is now available!
Timeout is now available! Pick it up on your favorite ebook retailer! Blaze is also available and you can preorder Blown Away and Deception now!
November 4, 2016
Book Review: Reader Magnets
Reader Magnets: Build Your Author Platform and Sell More Books on Kindle – Nick Stephenson
This book has great ideas on how to build your mailing list. It’s targeted toward new authors, but the system he suggests really can only be done by authors with 2-3 books who are willing to offer one for free. Either way, I’m definitely going to try this method. I’m curious to see how it plays out.
One of the only things I disliked about this book was his suggested email sequence. He discusses how it’s important to not spam your readers, but then he goes right into a FIFTEEN email sequence that does precisely that. As a reader, when I sign up for an author’s mailing list, I quickly unsubscribe if I get 15 automated emails “welcoming” me.
Other than that, the book offered a great way to gain mailing list subscribers and dives into further detail about how to establish a relationship with your reader instead of selling to them all the time.
What I Found Most Helpful: Nick Stephenson talks about establishing a relationship with your reader so you’re not always selling yourself. People are more likely to want to support you if they look at you as a friend rather than a salesman. That’s one thing I’ve got to keep in mind and work on with my readers.
November 3, 2016
Get a free copy of The Full Moon!
Haven’t picked up a copy of The Full Moon yet? Here’s your chance to do it for FREE: Head on over to Instafreebie and claim your digital copy! While you’re at it, help spread the word for other readers to grab this offer! Valid only for the month of November!
October 28, 2016
Should You Put Your Book Up for Preorder?
You see the Big 5 publishers do it all the time. Books in the bestseller lists on Amazon or Barnes and Noble are often preorders. You think it’s a pretty sweet deal to have people buying your book before its even done. You work better under pressure, right?
There are two schools of thought when it comes to preorder:
1. Preorders weaken a book launch and should be avoided except in the case of established series with a following.
2. Preorders can potentially keep you on the Hot New Releases list on Amazon longer than is typically accepted.
Those who say that a preorder weakens a book’s launch are likely looking for a big sales spike and review dump within the first week of a book’s availability. If that’s your strategy and you know what you’re doing, go for it. But keep in mind that sites like Amazon actually prefer there to be a steady build than a big spike in sales.
For instance, I ran a $0.99 sale on The Full Moon at the end of June and beginning of July. I sold 25 copies throughout the week, averaging about 5 copies a day. Naturally, the book jumped in ranking, but it stuck at its high ranking until a day or two of regular sales.
In other cases, I’ve run a “flash sale,” where a book is only available at a certain price for a short period of time and my ranking shot up and then quickly dropped.
Now, I’m a fan of preorders. I think it’s important to get your book’s link early so you can schedule promos ahead and put the link in the back matter of preceding books, but you can get in trouble with preorders. I only upload for preorder when the book is completely done. Now, I don’t have a large enough following and I have tried to promote a preorder through paid advertising, but an author could potentially get a lot of steady preorders leading up to launch and maintain a high ranking, thus putting them on the Hot New Releases list for not only 30 days but the length of their preorder plus 30 days.
You can see the appeal.
From my experience, getting people to preorder a book is difficult. Even your die hard fans will wait until its out to buy it, meaning releasing frequently is still key. But your results will vary.
Like all things in not only publishing, but business, you need to look at your goals and your resources and determine whether you’re better off having a “hard” launch without a preorder or a “soft” launch with. Nobody’s stopping you from experimenting with both types of launches for different books. Give it a shot and determine for yourself.
October 21, 2016
Why Having Money Helps
Well isn’t this the most obvious title ever. Sure, you hear some people claim that “money can’t buy happiness” and while I believe that’s true to an extent, money can buy A LOT.
Security.
Confidence.
Opportunity.
I’ve been pretty frank about my financial limitations since I started blogging. When it comes to money, I don’t really have any. I wish I did. Not for the vain reasons I used to think about when I was a kid, but because it would give me the freedom to achieve more of what I want to achieve.
If I was rich, I would still be working. I wouldn’t care about whether my books sold, but since I likely wouldn’t have a day job, I would be able to write books faster and naturally my income would increase. So you already see the catch-22 we’re in as new authors without much money to produce books or market them.
Now that I’m in my second year of publishing, it might be time to stop calling myself a “new” author, but the fact of the matter is I still don’t have a lot of money. Slowly (and I mean veeeeery slowly), I’m building a foundation. Like everyone, my thought is that if I can get enough books out in the right genre and market them the right way, I’ll finally have a hit on my hands.
I love reading all the success stories where authors discuss how much money they’ve made. More people than I expected make more money in a MONTH than I make in a YEAR at my day job. The bar is set high, but I’ll get there.
Even if I made a day job’s worth of income from my writing, I believe it would only increase. I would have all day to work on my books, meaning I’d have 40 hours a week to work on them as opposed to the 20 hours I find here and there now.
Another benefit of having enough money to write full time (and I’m talking $30,000-$40,000 a year, nothing too extreme) would the ripple effect it would have throughout my life. I wouldn’t have to cancel plans on the weekends because I want to finish my book. I could spend my evenings reading or watching TV instead of working on my books. Basically, my “work” time would be confined to an 8-4 Mon-Fri period.
Sure, there will be some variation. Maybe I’ll take a long weekend once a month or an extended vacation in the summer, but my life will once again have balance. Right now, I have two jobs, only one of which I’m really passionate about. I’m working all the time and I feel guilty when I’m out with my friends and not working on some part of my book because I know come Monday morning I’ll be back at the office working for somebody else.
The good thing is, with each new release I see an uptick in sales. I just have to be more conscious of releasing quicker and writing closer to market. Someday, I’ll be one of the authors who makes $30,000-$40,000 a month. If not, I’ll at least be making that much in a year.
October 14, 2016
Should You Be Blogging?
For those starting out in self-publishing, it seems that the only way to get an audience to promote your books to is to blog. You hear some authors who blog and seem to have great success with it and you figure it can’t be that hard. You think, “Maybe I should take up blogging to help build an audience before I publish?” The short answer is you shouldn’t. There’s a but in there, which I’ll explain.
Blogging is hard. It doesn’t look like it, but you’re essentially writing a book 500 words at a time every day for the rest of your life. This is on top of the product you’re trying to sell: your book.
Bloggers who are successful have put in the time to make it successful. Your time should be going in to making your book successful because that’s what is going to make you money.
Not only that, but blogs aren’t nearly as popular as they used to be. Good, informational blogs, that is. Tumblr blogs and sites like Buzzfeed are brain junk food. You could start a Tumblr blog and fill it with funny things, but that’s not going to help you sell books. It’s going to get you blog followers. They’re two different people.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start a blog. It just means you shouldn’t expect anything from your blog. I’ll give you a personal for instance:
I started this blog because I had something to say. I wanted to share my publishing journey with whoever wanted to read it. Let me tell you, I’ve been blogging for two years and while my page visits have increased, I don’t think I’ve sold a single book because of it.
Let’s look at my content. It’s geared toward other authors and focused on the publishing industry, more specifically independent publishing. General readers aren’t going to care to read my blog.
I’m okay with that.
Not only is this blog a resource for other indies, it’s also like my personal publishing journal. I can organize my thoughts by writing them out. It helps keep me in line.
What I did do to try to get books sales from this blog was put together the posts from my first year in publishing into a book. But still, the purpose of this blog isn’t to sell books, I simply refer you to my nonfiction book for further detail and reflection on the topics I cover on this blog. As far as my fiction is concerned, this blog drives zero people to my books about witches.
If you’ve got something to say, say it. But keep your expectations low. If you find you’re spending more time and effort into fixing up your blog and less on your books, maybe you should change course. Unless books are no longer your passion. You decide. You might like blogging better. For the general author who wants to write fiction, I’d say keep your words to your books.
October 7, 2016
The Countries I’ve Sold To
Until recently, I haven’t thought about the worldwide appeal of my books. I didn’t even really think about where my books were sold so much as how many books were sold.
Now that my books are available on all major ebook retailers instead of just Amazon, I realize that my books are now on a worldwide stage. Amazon, of course, sells across the world, but many of its shoppers are in the US. Despite this, I managed to reach people across the world. As I continue to advertise my books across all retailers, that reach will only grow.
What countries have you sold books to? I’ve arranged my list below in order of where I’ve sold books to first.
United States
United Kingdom
Germany
Canada
Australia
Japan
Italy
France
Spain
Netherlands
I’m excited to see just how many more I can add to this list. Maybe in a year, I’ll have another ten!
October 5, 2016
Join my team!
Join my Advance Review Team (ART) and get my newest books for FREE in exchange for an honest review!
Visit the Advance Review Team page for details.
October 3, 2016
Pick up my books wherever ebooks are sold!
September 30, 2016
Join me at my next book signing!
My next book singing is TONIGHT! If you’re in the Rochester area, stop by the Barnes and Noble at The Mall at Greece Ridge from 7-9 and say hi! Hope to see you there!
