Lindsay Buroker's Blog: Lindsay Buroker, page 41

Setting up a Blog Tour for Your Book

When I first released Encrypted and The Emperor's Edge at the end of last winter (yes, I've been doing this almost a year now!), I signed up for a couple of blog tours. This is where you guest post or answer interview questions on other people's sites. It can help with promotion if the sites have a decent amount of traffic. I ended up paying a little bit for someone else to organize things, but if I were to do it again, I'd probably save myself some money and set up the blog tour myself.

That's exactly what up-and-coming fantasy author, Darke Conteur, has done. She's here to talk about how she set things up (and to plug her new ebook–The Watchtower–of course).

Setting up Your Own Book Blog Tour

I want to thank Lindsay for allowing me to take over her blog for a day. I've been a fan of hers for a while now, and yeah, I'm the one that did the video reading of her first novella FLASH GOLD (sorry about the cleavage shot, it was just so hot that day!).

When I first heard of a blog tour, I literally thought it was someone driving around blogging while they visited holiday destinations. I know, stupid, right? I couldn't understand why someone would do that. Wasn't there better things to do than blog while on vacation? That was then, this is now, and I so totally get it!

If you're a regular follower of Lindsay's site, you know there are a pile of new authors coming out of the woodwork on a daily basis; all clawing and scratching to get your attention. Some of their self-promotion is good, and some, well, let's just say it isn't and leave it at that. Granted, what works for one person doesn't always work for another, and if you don't feel comfortable doing something others say worked for them, then fine! That's them, not you. For instance, when I posted the video of FLASH GOLD, I had a few people state there was no way they could do something like that. One woman said I was brave for doing it. Brave — no. Crazy — maybe.

I saw videos as a unique way to promote myself. Sure, it took a while to get comfortable in front of the camera, and I must have sent a dozen emails to Lindsay fretting over one thing or another, but I didn't give up on the idea because I thought, and still do, think it's a good idea.

Another good idea to promote oneself, is what I'm doing right now — a blog tour. When I first started talking about it, I had a lot of people ask me what it was. Seems it's a new thing, but I'm seeing more and more authors doing it. Think of it as a virtual book tour, and I think they're great. If you're planning on a tour of your own, here are a few things to keep in mind.

What kind of tour do you want to do: There are a number of ways you can go about this; author interviews, character interviews, post about what your book is about, or the genre, or a mixture of all three. I'm doing a character interview tour, but because Lindsay's site is about marketing, she asked me to do a post along that line. Being prepared for sudden changes in the lineup. Not everyone may want an in-depth analysis of your genre.
How many 'stops' should you do: I've seen some authors talk about doing thirty to fifty posts on one tour. That's a lot! Might I suggest a number a little more manageable, say ten to twenty? Especially if this is your first tour. My only concern with doing high numbers tours, is that after a while you may run out of things to talk about. It's always good to have a fresh post for each blog. It entices the reader to keep an eye out for your next post, and in the end, isn't that what the tour is about? Gathering interest in our work?
Who should I ask? This is completely up to you. Right now, there aren't that many people other than  authors/writers who would host a blog tour. This is still a new marketing tool, but I'm sure as it gains more in popularity, more options will become available.
Offer to return the favour. Karma, my friends, is a good thing. With each blog tour stop you make, you're exposing your work to new and potential followers, but this isn't just a one way street. Offering to host blog tours will bring in more potential followers, and if they like what they see, they may stick around.
If you're hosting a blog tour, might I suggest that you inform the guest blogger of any comments on their post. This will allow the guest blogger to reply in a timely fashion.

Alas, my time has come to an end. It has been a privileged to be here today, and an honour to have Lindsay's blog as a stop on the Paranormal Pit-Stop Blog Tour. So remember, just because it's dead, doesn't mean it's not alive!

* * *

You can read more about Darke Conteur's ebook, The Watchtower, on her site, or you might want to download it from Amazon.

Related Posts:

Book Promotion Tips for Hardcore Introverts
Trading Excerpts with Other Authors in the Back Matter of Your Ebook
Guest Blogging Your Way out of Obscurity

How Many People Can *Really* Make a Living Self-Publishing?

As I've mentioned in previous posts (3 Reasons I'm Glad I Chose Self-Publishing, Why Self-Publishing Is So Popular Right Now), e-publishing and the growing popularity of ebook readers has made it attractive to stay independent and self-publish instead of pursuing an agent and a traditional deal. To add fuel to the fire, there have been cases of authors doing well, extremely well on their own.

When you read about John Locke or Amanda Hocking (who signed a 2-million-dollar print deal after becoming a Kindle bestseller), it gets you pretty excited about the idea of making a killing (or maybe just a decent living) self-publishing.

But then you get started, and you realize how much work is involved in book promotion and just how many books the successful people have out. Inevitably, some of the shine wears off. For all the Lockes and Hockings, there are thousands of other folks who are struggling to sell a book a day.

One of my Twitter buddies, Reena Jacobs, recently shared her sales information on her blog, and, while she has a short story that's selling a respectable number of copies (possibly because it spent time as a freebie and got scads of downloads that way first), she has, a year into this, yet to break even on her two novels.

My sales stats

For myself, I've had more luck than some, less than others. I got started last December, and I've worked quite a bit at promotion. Some of you guys have seen my free podiobook, my free short stories (Ice Cracker II and Flash Gold are currently free), my goofy videos on YouTube, my various interviews and guest blog posts, and of course my daily chatter on Twitter (yes, some people have told me they actually found my work that way). Oh, and don't forget my Facebook fan page (if nothing else, I have some fun steampunk pictures up there).

The last month I made less than $1,000 was in May. In August, I broke $3,000. Alas, earnings have dropped off a lot since then with October barely hitting $1,500. Nothing to scoff about, but I'm glad I still have income from other sources!

In August, my best-selling book (not counting freebies) was the 99-cent Emperor's Edge (I make 70% on that one since I have it listed for $2.99 and Amazon is discounting it to price match other stores), and it sold about 900 copies and hovered around a 3,000-2,000 sales ranking in Amazon. Given that I've seen sales rankings of 400,000+, a sub-5,000 sales ranking is pretty darned good (though it'd be a lot more meaningful, from a financial standpoint, on a book priced at $5 instead of $1). More of that income came from Encrypted and Dark Currents, ebooks priced at $2.99 and $3.99 respectively. The earnings from my novellas weren't substantial, since they're priced less than $1.50 and on the 35% royalty plan.

In October, Emperor's Edge was still my bestseller, but everything sold fewer copies across the board. I didn't have any new books out (Hunted, the novella sequel to Flash Gold, came out in August), and I didn't pay for any advertising (in September, which wasn't as good as August but was still decent, I had a mention at EreaderNews that briefly propelled Emperor's Edge up to a 400 sales ranking and a slot in the Top 10 of its genre bestseller list — I sold something like 100 copies of that book that day).

These ups and downs seem to be common amongst self-publishers. Derek J. Canyon, a SF and young adult author who started a couple of months before me, had a similar experience. He had a couple of great months right after he lowered his novel to 99 cents, but sales eventually slowed back down.

It makes sense that no one book is going to stay at a great sales ranking forever, and there are more and more people getting into the game all the time (I'd argue that authors starting today have a lot more competition than Amanda Hocking who, in early 2010, was still something of an early adopter — others started in 2009, but I've heard she was among the first to price an introductory book at 99 cents). And that brings me back to the title of this post.

How many people can really make a living self-publishing?

Even if you do well for a month or a couple of months, can you depend on that income?

For most of us, is each book limited in sales potential?

This whole e-publishing industry is so new that it's hard to make predictions. I do think it's possible, and will continue to be possible, for some authors to make a living this way, and not necessarily just the outliers. If you're a good and prolific writer, I'd say, yes, you've got a good chance (if you don't mind learning the online marketing side of things).

I do think being prolific is key. I only have three (soon to be four) novels out (yes, I have a couple of novellas and short stories out there, too, but as long as I'm pricing those at $1.49 or $0.99, they lack the income potential of the novels). If I had double the body of work, maybe I'd make $6,000 in a high month and $3,000 in a low month. In all except pricy metropolitan cities, that'd be enough for a decent lifestyle.

But what if you just don't write that quickly? What if you've got a day job, a commute, school, kids, etc. and you can only write one novel a year and maybe a short story or two?

It's always possible that that one novel will take off and become a bestseller, but it doesn't happen that way for most of us. Odds are you'll be looking at maybe earning back your initial expenses (editing, cover art, etc.) and making a little extra income each month. You have to decide if that's enough for you.

And if it's not (hey, lots of people have 9-5 jobs they want to escape), is there any hope? Is there any chance of quitting in the foreseeable future?

Of course. If you want something badly enough, there's no stopping you. But you may have to get creative and embrace an entrepreneurial spirit.

Increasing your income by becoming an entrepreneuer

If you're marketing your work, you're probably already thinking like a business person, so this might be less daunting than you think.

We've talked about how much work goes into book promotion. For most authors, part of that work is going to go into building up a blog and social media platform (i.e. Twitter followers and Facebook Fans). As long as you're building a brand anyway, why not start a side business?

A lot of indie authors are making some of their income from their novels and short stories and some of it from other sources related to self-publishing/e-publishing.

After learning the ropes himself, Paul Salvette wrote an ebook teaching people how to format their ebooks.
In a similar vein, Jacquelyn Smith formats ebooks for those who aren't interested in DIY.
David Wisehart took his author blog and turned it into an ebook promotion blog, and he sells daily sponsorships there for indies looking for a place to promote.
After designing the covers for his own ebooks, Ronnell D. Porter started offering his cover-design services to others.
I've seen numerous authors (some professional, traditionally published authors) offering editing and critique services on the side.

As for myself, I started my self-publishing tips site, in part because I like to teach what I'm learning but also because I'd like another source of income. I've made money from affiliate programs there already, and I'll likely add advertising at some point.

Why bother, when I seem to be on track to be able to make an income solely from my ebooks eventually? Right now, most of that income comes from Amazon, and I've learned not to depend too much on one income source. You never know when that source will change the rules. I also like to have lots of projects to work on at once! I'm not sure I could ever see myself shut up in an office, writing on the same novel for six to eight hours a day (though some folks on Twitter have threatened to chain me to a desk for just that purpose…).

So, just to sum things up, the answer to my original question is: not everybody and probably not even most people, but if you're really hoping to quit the day job some day, you can make it happen, one way or another.

 

 

Related Posts:

Self-Publishing / E-publishing Q & A
Self-publishing Adventures: 9 Months and 10,000 Ebooks Later…
Why Self-Publishing Is So Popular Right Now

Excerpt from Deadly Games (Emperor's Edge 3)

As many of you know, the third Emperor's Edge book is off with the editor, and I'm patiently (okay, impatiently) waiting to get it back so it can go live this month.

The novel came in at 110,000 words (so no reading it in one night!), making it a little longer than the first two stories, and will be priced at $3.99 for the ebook. For those who don't mind getting their ebooks through Smashwords, I'm planning to send a 50%-off coupon out to my newsletter peeps, so you might want to sign up for that if you're a fan of the series — the subscription form is in the menu bar on the right).

I'll put out a paperback version for Deadly Games and Encrypted after the holidays.

I'm working on the "blurb" this weekend, but, in the meantime, here's a look at the first chapter for those who are wondering where the story will pick up again.

Related Posts:

Answering Questions on The Emperor's Edge Series
Emperor's Edge Giveaway on Goodreads
Giveaway for Signed Paperback Books: The Emperor's Edge and Dark Currents

Encrypted Q & A

There were a couple of questions about Encrypted in last month's question-asking post, so I'll answer those today. For those who haven't read the novel, you can try out the first couple of chapters here.

Lauren asks:

I also really enjoyed Encrypted. I seem to remember hearing you had a chapter or so partly written on a sequel. Are you still planning to write that book, and if so, any idea when?

I am still planning on a sequel to Encrypted, and do have it plotted out (and the first couple of chapters written), but, since it stands alone fairly well, I might wait until I finish The Emperor's Edge series. But we'll see. If I need a break from Amaranthe and crew, maybe I'll switch back to the Encrypted storyline.

I'm glad there's interest in a sequel, though, because I have plenty of trouble planned on Kyatt for Tikaya and Rias. A little Guess Who's Coming to Dinner mixed with Big Fat Greek Wedding along with a nice conspiracy theory, some underwater archaeology, and an attempted murder or two. (That sounds a little crazy, but it all makes sense in my head. Really.)

Jennifer asks:

I really enjoyed seeing young Sicarius at the end of Encrypted. Will any Encrypted characters make a cameo appearance in the EE series?

I've thought about this, but the two sets of characters are twenty years and 3,000 miles apart right now, so I'm not sure how I'd handle that. If I write the sequel to Encrypted (so I'm sure about where Tikaya and Rias end up) before I end up closing out the EE series, I might be more inclined to have everyone meet up in the last book.

Thanks for the questions!

More book-related Q & A posts:

 

Flash Gold Chronicles Q & A
The Emperor's Edge Series Q & A
Sicarius Q & A
Writing Characters, Dialogue, and Humor Q & A

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NaNoWriMo Success Tips (have any to add?)

It's the beginning of November, and, for a lot of us, that means the first day of NaNoWriMo, a self-inflicted torture worthy project where we attempt to write the first draft of a novel (50,000 words of one anyway) by the end of the month. No, it doesn't matter that this is a hectic time for many people. We are writers; we will conquer!

I did NaNo last year and knocked out the 50,000 words, and I usually write 1500 to 2000 words a day anyway when I'm working on a first draft, so I thought I'd throw together a few tips here for those who might be new or who've participated before but not met the goal. (If you have tips of your own, feel free to add them at the end.)

NaNoWriMo Success Tips:

Get ahead early

You'll probably find the writing comes easiest in the first week, because you've been thinking about this novel for a while. You know how the first chapter goes and maybe the first few chapters. You're excited about the project, and you're excited about NaNoWriMo. This is the time to get ahead i the word count. It'll be a little extra cushion for later, when life gets in the way or you just get stuck in the story (it happens to the best of us).

Write every day

Try not to blow off any days. If you write every day, you'll need to pump out about 1667 words before bed each night. Perhaps not a "piece of cake," but a manageable goal. If you miss a day, you're suddenly looking at over 3200 words that need to be written the next day. That's a lot. If you put things off and say you'll catch up on the weekend, it's even worse. You'll start to hate the whole process, and maybe give up, if you're looking at a Saturday where you have to write 7,000 words because you haven't gotten any writing in since Monday.

Instead, try to write every day. You'd be amazed at how much you can write in 20 minutes if you're focused. Even if you don't make the 1667 words that day, at least you made some words, so catching up isn't quite so difficult.

Don't put off starting until the end of the day

I'm a night owl, so I know all about saving writing for the end of the day, but it's easier to reach goals when you're able to knock out a few hundred words before you get going in the morning, a few hundred more on your lunch break, a couple hundred before dinner, etc.

You may actually find that you're more productive this way too. If you know you only have 15 minutes to spare before you leave for work, you'll sit down and write without screwing around. If you start writing at 8pm, and know you have the rest of the night to work, you might check email, play a few rounds of Scrabble on Facebook, tweet with your buddies, etc. The length of time needed to complete a task tends to expand to fill the length of time allotted. This is why some of your best NaNo days might be on a hectic Thursday instead of a Saturday where you have nothing else planned.

Don't obsess over having your entire novel outlined in advance

If you didn't get your entire novel plotted out in October, don't stress about it. A lot of us who write full outlines end up deviating from it by Chapter 3.

If you know where to start, and you know how it's going to end, you can probably find a road to get you there. In fact, there's a quotation about that. E.L. Doctorow: "It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."

Use your time away from the computer productively

Most of us can't sit at the computer and write all day. We have work, family, and various obligations that keep us busy, but you probably do have some hours during the day where your brain doesn't need to be 100% focused on its current task. Time where you're exercising, dog walking, commuting, etc.

Use that time to work out the next scene in your story so that when you do get a chance to sit down at the computer, you've got the next thousand words or so all planned out, and there's no need to dawdle.

Only write the good scenes

Most of us don't enjoy writing exposition, the stuff where we explain the world, the setting, the characters' histories, etc. And don't forget the transition pages where we feel we have to show how the characters got from Destination A to Destination B (even though absolutely nothing integral to the plot happens during those pages…). Well, guess what? If it's a slog to write, it's probably not going to be that interesting to read either.

Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing tells us to, "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip." You'd be surprised at just how much exposition you can leave out without any sort of confusion on the reader's part. And you'll have an easier time staying excited by just writing "the good stuff."

Worried that you're leaving out something important? You can always add it on the next pass. You're writing 50,000 words and most novels are in the 70-90,000 word range (SF & F are often over 100,000!), so you'll probably want to go back and flesh things out later anyway.

Worried that you'll get confused if you leave gaps in the narrative? Using a program like Scrivener (there's a free trial for NaNoWriMo participants) lets you name all your chapters and scenes and see them over in the sidebar, so it's easy to jump around and find things. (If you decide not to buy Scrivener, don't worry about losing access to your work; you can compile it into a Word file before the trial runs out.)

All right, that's enough of a list from me! Are you an experienced author or NaNoWriMo veteran with tips of your own? Please share them below!

Related Posts:

Who's Doing NaNoWriMo This Year?
Is Self-Publishing Right for You?
Pros and Cons of Writing a Series

Who's Doing NaNoWriMo This Year?

I waffled back and forth on whether to sign up for NaNoWriMo (I did it last year and finished the word count but didn't end up finishing the novel — it was something new and the characters never came together that well), but I decided to go ahead and do it again this year, since it's time to start the next Flash Gold adventure anyway. I doubt I'll need 50,000 words to finish it (the last novella was 27,000 words), but who knows? I've plotted the first half out, and there is quite a lot going on in this one!

I'll be traveling most of November, and won't always have wifi, so I'm sure updates will be sparse, but if anyone wants another writing buddy, you can find me here:

http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/participants/goblin_writer

I'll be happy to "buddy" any of you guys back. Good luck to everyone who's entering this year!

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Is Self-Publishing Right for You?

[image error]Today's question is one I received via email rather than through my Q&A blog post, but I know it's a common one these days, so I wanted to take a stab at answering it here:

How do you know if self-publishing is right for you?

A few years ago (shoot, a couple of years ago), self-publishing was a lot less popular than it is today. For most, it wasn't something you considered if you were a "serious" writer (someone who wanted to make a career out of it), unless you were working in a small niche with a limited market. You can read more about how the tides have turned in my post on Why Self-Publishing Is So Popular Right Now.

Even though the perceptions of writers and readers are changing, it's still not the road everyone wants to follow. Let's break this down into reasons why you might want to self-publish and reasons why you might not want to.

Reasons to Self-Publish

Complete control over your work — You get to write your story, your way. Choose your own cover art, write in the genre you love (not what's popular), and do whatever you want when it comes to word count. There are no rules on length any more, especially when most of your sales will come as ebooks. Want to write an epic fantasy novel that's 300,000 words long? Go for it. Prefer short stories and novellas, since you can pen them more quickly? That's an option too. At Amazon, my 17,000-word steampunk adventure Flash Goldis selling better than all except one of my novels this month.
Far greater earnings per book — As an indie, you take home 70% per ebook priced between $2.99 and $9.99 (35% on others), whereas, as someone beholden to the traditional system, your cut is whatever your agent can get you (I've heard anywhere from a high of 25% to a low of 8% for ebooks — I make 7% as an Amazon affiliate just for linking to a book from my website…it's truly abysmal to imagine writing the entire book and only getting 1% more than that). And don't assume you'll sell a lot more books if you're traditionally published. I know lots of indies with better sales rankings at Amazon than even popular traditionally published authors. I link to this post a lot, but here's a comparison of two mid-list fantasy authors, one indie and one traditionally published (note: the trad. published fellow has been in the biz a lot longer and, yes, the indie is making a lot more).
You can get books to market much more quickly — If your hoping to write for a living someday, it pays to get your books out there sooner rather than later. The sooner you have a body of work out there, the sooner you can start marketing, and the sooner people can buy it and (we hope!) become fans and try your other books.
Ability to make changes, especially in price — As an indie, you can change the cover art, blurb, and price at any time to see if your book sells better one way than another. Not only do traditionally published folks not get much say in this, but, when it comes to ebooks, the prices the presses set can really hurt your odds of selling books. If you're a new author and your publisher has decided to sell your ebook at $8 or $9…good luck.
Horror stories of bad contracts and rights being tied up long-term — Check out this interview I did with Bridget McKenna, a traditionally published author who got sick of working with the system and is turning indie. She never did get the rights back to the books she published in the 90s. Hers isn't an unusual story.

Reasons to Try the Traditional Route

As you can see, I'm a fan of self-publishing (obviously!), but I can see why some people want to give the traditional route a try. Here are a few reasons that this path might be for you:

An advance on a book sale — Most of the advances I've heard of people getting are pitifully small, but you do see stories here and there of bidding wars between houses that result in authors getting a big advance.
More hand-holding when it comes to marketing — As far as I can tell, you don't get much help (money-thrown-into-advertising type help) with the actual marketing unless you do get one of those big advances and the publisher has something wrapped up in your success, but even the small publishers seem to be willing to help with showing you how to arrange blog tours and such. I'd argue that you can learn how to do everything yourself, and you have more control over doing book giveaways and such, but not everybody cares to be all alone in this endeavor.
A near-perfect manuscript to present to the public — I'll be the first to admit that even with multiple passes, beta readers, and the work of a good freelance editor (something you have to pay for as an indie), it's hard to catch all the typos and flubs in a 400-page manuscript. You'll see typos occasionally in traditionally published books, but they're rare, since more people have gone over the file. I hate it when someone points out a typo in a review. (I don't hate the person for doing it; I just hate that the typo slipped through!) With ebooks, I can easily go in and fix the typo, but the review is there forever. You also tend to take such things (formatting mishaps and digs against your cover art too) a lot more personally when you're an indie, because you can't pass the buck and say, "Oh, that was my publisher's fault."
The prestige of making a sale to a big publisher — If you sell your book to one of the Big 6 publishers, it's cool. It just is. You know your paperbacks (maybe hardbacks too) will be on sale in physical bookstores (those that are left!) across the country, maybe across the world eventually. Like I said, cool.

While I hope I've given the writers out there something to think about, I do want to sign off by pointing out that it doesn't have to be an either/or decision. A lot of traditionally published authors are using their names to sell short stories and novellas as indie ebooks and make extra money on their own. Some hardcore independent authors eventually seek representation and a deal with a Big 6 publisher once they've shown that their books sell well. Whatever you decide today doesn't have to be forever.

Related Posts:

Why I Self-Published AKA Reena Jacobs Does the Math [Guest Post]
Self-Publishing / E-publishing Q & A
Self-publishing Adventures: 9 Months and 10,000 Ebooks Later…

Writing Characters, Dialogue, and Humor Q & A

Today I'm answering more questions from the gift-certificate-giveaway post (The winner has been picked and awarded, but you're always welcome to send in questions!). This time the topic is writing, specifically related to characters and dialogue. I'm always reluctant to offer writing advice (after all, I'm a self-published author, not Stephen King), so please consider everything "in my opinion," as it were. If something helps, great!

Claire asks:

Any specific tricks you use to define your characters voices so well? E.g. mindmaps, character surveys, profiling.

I can't say that I have any tools that I use or suggest (I looked up a character profile questionnaire, and my eyes were crossing before I'd scrolled halfway down the page, heh). For me, I need to know characters' backgrounds, what they want (goals that will play into the story), what their quirks or foibles are, and the voice tends to come out of that. I don't really need to know what their favorite color is, how many cousins they have, or if they like pumpkin (yeah, that was on the character profile page I found!).

In a group, it's going to be natural for some people to have stronger personalities than others (and, of course, that's how it works in real life too), but if you have characters who feel flat or drab, it may be that they're just kind of there because the plot tells them to be. If you remember that everybody is angling for something all of the time, and you have them fighting for what they want, then they're going to be more likely to speak their minds and have something interesting to say, rather than just being yes-men (or women).

Doing a series is nice because the characters start to become as real to you as actual people after you've spent a lot of time with them. I can do the gang from the Emperor's Edge novels without any conscious thought about voice, but with the characters from Encrypted, for example, I'd need to go back and re-read the book before writing a new story with them.

Alyse asks:

I love the banter between the characters; especially how the reader can easily distinguish between individual characters just by their type of response in dialogue. I think that's a sign of very strong characterization. So my question is: do you make up the dialogue as you write the scene, or do you have an idea of what they will say before you start writing?

I'm glad you're enjoying my garrulous guys, Alyse. I make it up as I go, though sometimes, when I'm planning a scene, a snippet of dialogue will come to me while I'm out walking the dog or driving somewhere, and I'll rush to jot it down.

For humor, a lot of it just comes out of the different personalities of the characters, but I'll set things up too so that there can be a punchline. Sometimes that setup will come in the previous line of dialogue, but sometimes it might be chapters earlier (the eyepatch bit in Dark Currents, for example), and that means not everybody will remember it, but for those who do it's like a little Easter egg find.

For an important scene, I might have to go over the dialogue a few times to get it right (or close enough — I'm one of those people who is rarely 100% satisfied with how something comes out, but you have to learn when to stop editing and let it go). I rewrote the big-reveal chat between Sicarius and Amaranthe at the end of EE a number of times before getting it "close enough."

Raymond asks:

You do a wonderful job of adding humor into your books (mainly through Maldynado and his antics!). Is it hard to balance the humor with the serious situations that the characters always find themselves in? How do you know as the author how much is too much when it comes to humor/jokes in serious situations?

Thanks, Raymond! (Maldynado will be so pleased that you are noticing and appreciating him.)

My characters do love to chitchat, and, yes, I often have to rein them in when it's supposed to be a serious situation with more tension. Sometimes it'll be my crit buddies who will say the heroes probably shouldn't be bantering right then.

At the same time, I'm much more a fan of campy SF/F than the dramatic stuff (I enjoyed Battlestar Galactica, but it's Stargate SG-1 that I have on DVD and have watched numerous times), so I'm not likely to keep things too serious for too long.

Lisa asks:

Are any of your characters based on real people?

Nope, though I've been known to snag someone's habit or tic and use it.

I will say that I knew a couple of Bocrest (the sergeant leading the expedition in Encrypted) types when I was in the army, and his voice was particularly easy to channel, curses and all.

Monica asks:

How did you come up with your characters names? Do they have special meaning to you?

Back in the day, I was more likely to do a name that meant something. Sicarius came from a browsing of the Latin-English dictionary (I looked up assassin for kicks, and there it was. Despite being rather literal, I liked the way it sounded and decided to keep it). Amaranthe was Tasha (as a placeholder) all through the first EE novel, and I finally decided to go with a name that meant something instead. I kind of knew the etymology for some reason (I think I'd looked up amaranth grain at one point), and I liked that its root meant "unfading." I thought that was good for a determined character.

These days, I'm more likely to just make something up, though I have been known to browse through the ranks of pro tennis players for ideas. They're from all over the world, so you get an eclectic mix of names.

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Should You Add a Forum to Your Author Website?

I was chatting online with another author this weekend (you know, during that time when I was supposed to be editing my manuscript), and we got to talking about forums and whether or not an author should add one to his or her site.

I have a little experience with forums (I added one to the first website I ever built with the intention of making money, and it actually grew quite popular), so I thought I'd post some of the some pros and cons. Instead of putting this over on my self-publishing blog, I'll write it up here, in case any readers want to chime in (I'm not ready to add a forum to my own site, but I could see doing it at some future date). So, without further introductory rambling…

Should Authors Add Forums to Their Websites?

First off, on the chance you haven't participated in any forums, and you're not quite sure how they work, let me answer the question….

What is a forum?

Perhaps the earliest form of social media, forums or message boards are websites (or features on a larger website) that people can join to interact with each other, usually on a certain topic. For example, if you're into ebook readers, you might want to hang out at the MobileRead Forum. It's an opportunity to have your say and communicate with people who share a common interest.

As far as author forums go, the first one I remember visiting (this was ten years ago, and I even ended up meeting some of the regulars at a local Olive Garden) was the R.A. Salvatore forum. He used to have the message board on his own website (which is what I'd do if I were starting one), but it looks like it's on a free forum site now.

How does one start a forum?

If you have your own domain name and web host (I talk about how to get the heck off Blogger and start a professional website here and also in this podcast), it may be less work than you'd think. There are lots of web hosts, including the one I mention in that article, that have one-click-installation forum software that's included for free with your plan. So, adding a forum needn't be an added expense, and it's something that can probably be set up in an evening.

Buuut, before you get overly eager and rush to do this, let's talk about some of the pros and cons. As I mentioned, I've run forums before, and there are some downsides. In fact, I'll talk about those first, lest you get too excited by this idea and forget to read the rest of the post.

Disadvantages of Adding a Forum to Your Site

Forums are hard to get started unless your site is already popular — Having an empty forum that nobody visits can be a bad thing for your site. If your fans pop in but don't see anybody else participating, they probably won't join and post either. In fact, an empty forum could even work against you. If a potential reader visits your site and sees that nobody's posting in your forum, they might think you're not a very popular author and that nobody is buying your books. If you don't have many (or any!) reviews on Amazon yet either, that could reinforce the feeling, and they might feel they should stay away. Social proof is a bitch when it works against you!
Maintaining a forum is a lot of work — Let's say you do get your forum rolling, and it's getting popular, with dozens or even hundreds of people visiting each day. With that popularity comes a need for moderation — spam, blatant promotion, off-topic messages, etc. may all need to be deleted or modified. Are you going to do that task yourself? (It is often possible to find a faithful member of the community to become a moderator, but you'll still want to check in regularly, and there's a limit to how much you can ask someone to do for free.)
Popular forums use a lot of bandwidth — If you keep your forum focused on your books, then you probably don't need to worry about this, but if it grows and expands (as forums sometimes do) and covers multiple subjects in your genre (as a fantasy author, maybe I'd end up with a section for SF/F movies and steampunk and epic fantasy and who knows what else), it might get to the point where all your visitors are loading dozens of pages a day. You might then receive a note from your web host, stating that you need to buy a more expensive hosting plan, or you'll just try to load your site one day and find that it's down for the rest of the month with a "bandwidth exceeded" notice. Doh!

Advantages of Adding a Forum to Your Site

Okay, now that we've talked about the downsides to having a forum, let's talk about some of the perks.

Creating a community for your fans — As I said, people like to meet and chat with those who share their interests. It's amazing how many self-proclaimed introverts (as many readers are) you can find chatting it up online. By turning your site into a destination people visit daily (to check for new posts and to contribute their opinions), you'll more easily keep your name in readers' minds. They'll be talking about your work in between books, and, because they're visiting your site often, they'll know exactly when your next book is due out, and they'll be ready to grab it on release day (compare this to people who might just forget about you between one book and the next).
Loads of free, original content for your site (content you don't have to write!) — If you've read any of my posts on search engine optimization, you know that Google loves big, authority sites and also that each unique page on your site is a chance for someone to stumble upon you via the search engines. If you're a prolific blogger, you might get three to five new pages up on your site each week. Even a slightly popular forum could give you three to five new threads (pages) a day, each with lots of responses — i.e. lots of content that could come up on someone's Google search. Once a forum gets rolling, you'll see a big increase in the number of visitors that find your site via the search engines.
The possibility of selling more books — This goes hand-in-hand with my last bullet point. More people finding your site through the search engines means more chances to expose new readers to your work. You can set up your forum so your free short stories and sample chapters show up in the menu for each page, and you could have the cover art for one of your books as the header.

As you can see, adding a forum to your site can be a big responsibility, but it comes with some perks too.

If you have any experience with forums or have an opinion on whether authors should have them, let us know in the comments.

 

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Self-Publishing / E-publishing Q & A

For today's blog entry, let's answer some questions on self-publishing and e-publishing.

LB asks:

Epublishing has broadened the market for novellas. Do these sell as well on Kindle as novels?

While many readers prefer longer stories, lots of them will give short stories and novellas a try if the blurb sounds good. Most months, Flash Gold (and its recent sequel, Hunted) has been behind my novels in sales, but not necessarily far behind. I've come across some ebook authors who are specializing in shorter workers, and they only write novellas (and they sell more ebooks than I do!).

You'll probably want to price novellas for less than novels, and I also recommend making it clear in the blurb that the story isn't a novel. Some people get irked when they thought they were buying a novel and they ended up finishing the ebook in an hour.

Joe L. asks:

With the advent of ebooks and self-publishing, the ideas that I've had wandering around in my head for many years have the possibility of becoming at least short stories.  Where do you suggest I start on getting them out?

First, get some complete stories down on paper (there are a lot of writers who start lots of projects, but never finish them, and that's kind of important if you want to publish!). Then it's a good idea to get feedback from people who are in the biz (other writers or editors who aren't related to you and won't feel obligated to say nice things). Nobody's stuff comes out perfect, and most of us spend a lot of time taking classes and participating in workshops before we have stories that are ready to publish.

I personally think it's a good idea to submit some short stories to magazine and e-zine markets out there. While it probably won't do much for your writing career, and you'll be lucky to make $5 in most cases, it's sort of a sign that you're ready. If you start making some sales, your writing is probably polished enough that you can find an audience out there that will enjoy it.

Ceae asks:

What was your experience with getting your novels into the Kindle store? The Nook store?

That's been the easiest part! (Getting people to find and buy the novels is the hard part, heh heh.) You can upload your ebook files and cover art at Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing and Barnes & Noble's Pub It.

Marc Johnson asks:

How come you don't use different covers for your paperback books and your ebooks? And how can I sell lots of books like you?

Does anyone use different covers for ebooks and paperbacks? Hm. I'd think that would be confusing to the audience. Also, if you're paying for your cover art, you'd have to pay twice as much.

As for the rest, I'm pretty transparent on what all I've tried and am continuing to try. You can browse through the archives here or check out my new self publishing blog.

Chad Kearbey asks:

How do you handle taxes with e-book publishing?

This will be my first year getting tax forms from Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, etc. for e-publishing specifically, but I assume they will send out 1099 Misc forms (for the U.S. anyway; I'm not sure what folks in other countries get from them), and I'll treat it like any other self-employment income.

You tend to have to pay more in taxes when you're self-employed, so it's a good idea to set aside a chunk of the money as it's coming in. You do get to write off your expenses, though, and that'd include things like buying advertising, web hosting for your author site, paying for an editor, cover designer, formatter, etc. Make sure to keep receipts for everything like that.

Then you can decide whether you want to use an accountant or tax adviser or just wing it with TurboTax or something similar. Those software packages have versions for self-employed folks and wizards to walk you through everything.

In your second year of earning income as a self-employed person, the IRS (again, U.S. only here) will expect to you pay quarterly estimates based on your previous year's income.

Of course, a tax adviser can answer your questions here much better than I can!

Serena Casey asks:

Do you know what percentage of people who sample your books actually end up buying?

No, they don't share this information with us. It's too bad, since it might be helpful to know. Although, it might be a blow to the old ego too!

Ikkinlala asks:

Would you rather have readers purchase printed books or e-books?

Whatever someone is interested in buying is fine with me! If you want the author to receive the biggest cut, it'll depend on what the author has everything priced at. If paperbacks are priced below $12 (and I'm talking about indies doing print-on-demand publishing), they've probably made the book as affordable as they can, and they're not making a huge chunk of change on the sales. If their ebook is above $2.99, you're sending them about $2 on every sale (we don't make much on 99-cent ebooks though, and most authors are using that price to try and get you into their world, so you'll try their other books!).

But anyway, the short answer is that most authors would be delighted to have you purchase anything from them, ebook or paperback.

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