Jennifer Becton's Blog, page 49

Another Thank You

Absolute Liability hit another major milestone yesterday, and I want to say a big thank you to everyone who decided to take a chance on a new series by a first-time thriller author. I really appreciate it!

In this economy, I know that every dollar is precious, and I'm honored that you were willing to exchange your hard-earned money for my book. I hope it provided you hours of entertainment.

So thank you again to the 40,000 people who purchased Absolute Liability. I hope you enjoyed it, and I promise to do my best to make the rest of the Southern Fraud series entertaining too.

The Austen Games

I've had the good fortune to be asked to participate in The Austen Games, and because I am insane and do not have any looming deadlines at all–Death Benefits, what's that?–I've decided to give it a go.

What is the Austen Games, you ask. It's a choose your own adventure Austen retelling, akin to The Potter Games and created by the same minds.

Peruse this trailer:

If you'd like to keep up to date with The Austen Games, follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Any guesses as to which character I'll be writing?

Review of Caro at To Read or Not To Read

I'm so excited about the newest review of Caroline Bingley at Two Read or Not To Read. Please go over and check it out. Marcie has an active blog, full of excellently well-written reviews.

Also, I'm offering a few tips for turning your novel into an ebook today at Indie Jane, so even if you're not ready to format, hop over and read anyway. There are a few things you can to do in the writing process to make sure things go as smoothly as possible.

There Is No Secret

This post was originally written for and posted at Yamina Today. I'm reposting it here in the hopes that it might help you in your self-publishing journey.

What is the secret to self-publishing success? How did writers like Amanda Hocking and John Locke come from nowhere and become USA Today and/or New York Times best-selling authors?

With the launch of Absolute Liability (Southern Fraud book 1), I've been fortunate enough to experience a bit of success by landing in the Amazon Kindle Top 100, and since I began self-publishing in September 2010, I've sold more than 28,500 books. Though I'm nowhere near the league of Hocking or Locke, people still ask me how did I it. What's the secret?

The secret is that there is no secret.

I'll tell you exactly what I did, how much money I spent, and how many books I sold. Will replicating my process gain you the same result? I have no idea because there will always be an element of luck involved. If there were a formula for publishing success, every book would be a best seller, and that's just not the case.

Book Preparation Notes

I wrote the best book I could, and then I put it through a professional editorial process, including a story/content editor, proofreader, and multiple cold readers. (I am an editor by trade, so much of the cost was deferred through exchange of services, but I spent $200.)
I purchased art and tried to design a cover that, while being true to the genre, also stood out and said something definite about my book. (Art cost $100.)
I tried to give more than the reader expected in terms of interior/ebook design by adding chapter-head and section-break images as one might see in a professional paperback or hardcover. (Images included in the cost of art above.)

Platform Notes

I already had an active following on Twitter and Facebook, which was crucial to spreading the word.
I had an existing blog and had the honor to participate in several group blogs. I also took any guest blog or interview that I was offered.
I designed a flash website specifically for the Southern Fraud series, and I included a contact form.
I try very hard to respond to all my email from readers.

Marketing Notes

I decided to price low. In comparison to what most traditional authors earn from a $6.99 mass market paperback, $.35 on a $.99 ebook is a good deal.
I chose to do a big launch on the weekend of July 15. I combined a 2-day sponsorship at Kindle Nation Daily with 1-day sponsorship at Kindle Boards and a sponsorship at the Frugal eReader. I also had a charity drive for Ride 2 Recovery, which helps facilitate the rehabilitation of wounded service members. (Launch cost $245, plus my donation to R2R.)
I sent ebook ARCs to book bloggers for honest reviews on sites like Amazon, BN, and Goodreads.
After the launch, I used a free voucher for Google Adwords, which ran from 30 days, and purchased one $30 ad on Goodreads.
Since those ads expired, I have done nothing but the occasional guest blog.

The launch of Absolute Liability peaked at a rank of 430 on the Amazon Kindle list. After that, the book slowly began to build momentum and landed in the top 100. If you'd like to read a breakdown of weekly sales numbers, please visit my blog.

I hope you can use some facet of my experience to help your books, but there's just no guarantee that replicating what I've done will work. It may not even work for me next time. Also, a great deal depends on your precise market. What may work for a thriller may not work for historical fiction, and a book in a niche genre may not have an audience big enough to hit overall best-sellers lists and may warrant a completely different strategy.

If I could boil it down to a three bullet points, I'd say these are the most critical factors to success:

Professionalism: hold yourself to high standards.
Risk: be willing to face the possibility of total failure.
Patience: work until you get lucky.

I'd love to hear what has worked for you and what hasn't. What have you done to share your books with a wider audience?

Still Kicking

I apologize for the slowness of the blog, but it's for a good reason. I'm finishing up the third draft of Death Benefits, and I plan to have it in the mail to my story editor on Thursday. Progress is steady, and at the moment, Vincent and Julia are….

Oh wait!

I can't tell you what they're doing right now. I don't want to ruin the plot. But I will say there's a crazy guy with a rifle involved.

Also, the paperbacks of Caroline Bingley arrived via UPS today, so if you won a copy or ordered one through my website, it will go in the mail tomorrow.

And finally, I want to thank you all for keeping Absolute Liability in the Amazon Kindle Top 100 for more than 8 weeks. I am amazed, honored, and humbled to have so many readers interested in something I wrote. I appreciate everyone who was willing to try out a book featuring an insurance fraud investigator (not a popular character type, I know), thankful for those reviews I have received, and grateful to have gotten so many private notes of encouragement about continuing the Southern Fraud series.

And now, I'm back to work so I don't miss my deadline.

Caroline Bingley: The Paperback

Caroline Bingley in paperback is now available on Amazon for only $9.99. If you are in need of something to read this weekend, please consider dear, sweet Caro on Kindle too.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Brant Flakes

Today, I had the honor of being interviewed by Marilyn Brant about Absolute Liability and my thriller series. There's also a free ebook copy of the novel up for grabs. So please go visit Brant Flakes. I'd appreciate it!

How I Write

This is a pretty good representation of how my cat helps me write:

Top 5 Reasons…

Visit Austen Aspirations today to find out my top 5 reasons for choosing Caroline Bingley as the focus of my newest Pride and Prejudice sequel. Also, today is the last day to enter to win a copy of Caroline and Personages at Indie Jane.

Thursday, I'll be interviewed by Marilyn Brant about Absolute Liability and the writing life.

Please come by and say hi!

First Day as a Full-time Writer

So today is my first day as full-time writer. How strange. I still have a list of things to do a mile long. Death Benefits has got to be ready for the story editor as soon as possible, so I'll be working on that all week and will be under my cone of silence mostly.

However, I did manage to get invited to take part in several blogs this week, so I'll be annoying you with links to those. The first of these is at Indie Jane, where I'm blogging about Muuurder! Tomorrow, I'll be at Nancy Kelley's Austen Aspirations blogging about Caroline Bingley and her potential as a heroine.

Caroline Bingley will be available as a paperback this week, so I'll also be setting up a signed copy pre-order link on my website. *Adds that to mile-long list.*

Oh, and here's a quick numbers update: As of yesterday, Absolute Liability has sold more than 35,000 copies, which pushes my total number of book sales to more than 41,000.

THANK YOU ALL! I am grateful.