Cyndy Aleo's Blog - Posts Tagged "self-publishing"

subtitled: how and why I ended up self-publishing when I swore I’d never do it.

UNDYING: The book that wouldn’t leave me alone.
So here’s what happened. I wrote this book 2+ years ago. And, you know. That can be kind of a big deal, I guess. I wrote 50,000 words of it during NaNoWriMo in 2010, and then wrote more after that.

In 2011, I submitted it to Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Not because I thought it would win, but because I felt my betas were being too nice about it. I was hoping to get it in front of the Vine reviewers and get some good feedback and I could edit it more.

Of course, then it made it to the quarterfinals, and I had a lovely, if not giddy, Publishers’ Weekly review.
The problem was, I knew it wasn’t right, and I ripped out over half the book and started over. When I had it all done, I started querying agents. And figured it would be a slam dunk. I mean, I had a lot of full requests (this is A Good Thing, for those of you unfamiliar with this process).

Trouble was, none of them wanted to represent it. I had one agent who sent a rejection that made even crocodile-thick-skinned me sob into my Corn Flakes, but later I did see that meant she was SUPER invested in what happened to the characters, and they didn’t do what she wanted them to. I fixed some of the things I felt she was right about, and left others I thought she was wrong about.

But everyone else? Nothing. There was never anything they told me that I’d be able to fix. One said it was good but wasn’t “big” enough for a debut. Which I appreciated, but now there’s a new release that has a VERY VERY similar plot that’s going to be a bestseller this week and is going to be a TV series.

Which makes my book unrepresentable.

I mean, my book is different. There’s no apocalypse. This is a sweet little book that focuses on people. Just one couple. And there’s more of this story in my head, but that whole story is a dead end if the first book just sits on my hard drive. So I had a choice: sit here and stew in my pity party of one, or put my book out there and hopefully make a few bucks.

But seriously. This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve written other books in other NanNoWriMos. Some I recycled into fan fiction. Some sit on my hard drive, languishing away. But this one was special and I really felt something about it and I wanted it to have its day, even if it’s a very small day.

I’m okay with that.

And hey, Petey needs two new pairs of dance shoes.
No pressure, but if this sounds interesting, and you want to at least read the blurb, thank you. You don’t have to buy it. You can download a sample if you just want to see if I can use apostrophes correctly. (The answer, BTW, is yes).

Thanks for reading this far, and if you don’t mind, wish me luck.

subtitled: YOU CAN DO THIS!

So in the interest of sharing information (and selling my book), I thought I’d do a little post or eleventy about what I did and how I did it. (And, you know, convince you to buy my book.)

First up: cover design.

I’m not going to lie to you; I really, really, really wanted a professionally done cover. I have a professional photographer’s work bookmarked, as well as cover artists I’d kill to employ.

However, the bank account! She is empty!

So I had to punt. Good news is YOU CAN DO THIS.

1. For starters: finding low- or no-cost artwork.

This is a lot easier than you’d think. Places like Flickr and Wikicommons have work licensed under Creative Commons licensing. You want CC by 2.0, which is the attribution license that allows work to be used for commercial purposes and allows you to alter the work so long as you give the artist credit.

This takes TIME. I’ll be honest; a search on Flickr for “blonde” netted — no exaggeration — hundreds of pictures of some woman posing in more leather than any one human should possibly own.

Most importantly, don’t steal. Ganking off DeviantArt or someone’s web site is NOT OKAY. And be sure to give that credit to the artist. They’re kind enough to let you use their stuff; the least you can do is put their information in your front matter.

2. Once you find something, KEEP IT SIMPLE.

Unless you are a professional designer, less is MORE. You can’t screw up or over-do simple. I picked a single image tha wasn’t busy and really didn’t have much in the background. (read: it was a solid background). Use NO MORE than two fonts and try to keep them complementary. Keep the color scheme simple.

3. Make good friends.

I’m going to probably have this tip in everything I post on this subject. You cannot underestimate the value of having friends who are talented, but best of all, DO NOT BLOW SUNSHINE UP YOUR ASS. That’s crucial. I did a mock-up of my cover, sent it to some friends and got back “It’s okay, but looks amateur. Let me fix that for you.”

Friends who own Photoshop or Illustrator or even know their way around GIMP are PRICELESS. If you don’t know someone, you might be able to barter services to find help.

(I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to call it Part Deux)

subtitled: YOU CAN DO THIS! (It’s just going to take a little work.)

Okay, so yesterday I talked about how to do a cover when you’re broke. Today we are talking editing.

First, I’m going to say something not everyone is going to agree with: EVERYONE NEEDS AN EDITOR.

Sure, I’m a freelance editor, so I literally get paid to say that, but I believe it as well. I mean, I AM an editor and I still wouldn’t rely on myself to edit my stuff.

Here’s the thing: You can catch a lot of things if you are careful and skilled. What you can’t do (ever) is view your work objectively. We all go through those moments of “OMG, this is amazing” and then “OMG, I can’t write and this sucks” but the thing is, we’re emotionally connected to our words either way.

That’s where having someone come in and look at your stuff is KEY.

I know what you are saying: Editors are expensive. Yes. They are. My rates are at the low end of the scale, and I still wouldn’t be able to afford myself. You can, however, potentially skimp on this IF YOU DO THE WORK.

By work, I don’t mean run spellcheck and grammar check and call it a day. I mean, put a great team together for yourself. You need a group of crit partners/betas who are going to be bluntly honest with you. If you send out your MS to someone, and that person says “I love it! I wouldn’t change a thing”? You need to find someone new.

This is HARD and it takes a lot of time. You have to find people and be willing to do the same for them and you also have to find the right people and develop a skin thick enough to not take offense when someone says “This part sucks and you need to rewrite it.”

There’s no room for snowflakes here, and it’s not a fast process. I mean, let’s face it: You’ll note my acknowledgments contain some people who have some pretty popular books. That means they are busy people. And lots of times, they don’t have time to read my stuff, so it also helps to:

HAVE A LARGE ENOUGH TEAM.

I actually use different betas for different stuff. Some, like Eden Barber, do everything. (Also, if you are lucky enough to have an Eden Barber, you should reward them with things like rotisserie chickens, because she copy edited for me and is SUPER SMART. I mean, she can READ IPA pronunciations. Without looking things up)

The key is to be open. Be willing to barter. Be willing to accept criticism GLADLY and then have a discussion about which things you agree with and which you really don’t. But definitely don’t write in a vacuum. And try to hook up with writers who are as good or better than you are, but also try to help others who might not have been writing as long.

Also, here’s my uncomfortable standard shill. Buy my book, won’t you? Or at least download the sample and see if you might like me? I can always use more crit. I can take it. I went to CATHOLIC SCHOOL.

In part one, we talked cover, and in part two we discussed editing.

Now we have a crucial decision to make. You wrote a book, and it’s all ready to go with a great cover and fantastic text, but where — and how — should you publish it.

I originally started out this post trying to corral all my information gathering into a neat little place, but there’s a great post from David Carnoy over at Cnet that covers a lot of the basics (and a link to a companion post about non-ebook publishing).

Let me cut to the chase and tell you what I did and why.

Amazon, like it or not, currently owns the lion’s share of the ebook market. No, not everyone has a Kindle, but just about everyone can download the Kindle app to a tablet or laptop/desktop. Now add in the Kindle Direct Program. No, not everyone loves it, but here are the bonuses:

70% of the price you set for your ebook goes INTO YOUR POCKET so long as the minimum price you set is $2.99 or higher. (Keep in mind, we are broke here, so this is A Big Deal.)

If Prime members borrow your book as their free book for the month? You will get some money for that. YOU CAN GET MONEY FOR PEOPLE READING YOUR BOOK FOR FREE. I can’t stress that enough.

Up to five days in each enrollment period, you can list your book for free to promote the title. Win.

Did I mention 70%? And best of all, if you have your file all formatted (follow the directions; it’s not that difficult) and your cover all done, there is NO FEE TO START SELLING YOUR BOOK.

Now, the downsides: You can’t sell or list your book anywhere other than Amazon for 90 days. That’s suckish when you have people with Nooks and Kobos and what all else or who hate Amazon with a fiery passion. You can, however, offer a print version via CreateSpace and Amazon is completely copacetic with that.

Amazon also holds your first royalties for 60 days. So you have two months of no money in your pocket.

Now, compare that to places that take a percentage off your sales or require a setup fee, and you’re ahead of the game.

Note that I am only starting out here, so this may end up as a dumb move in the end. But for zero cost, I’m able to get my book out there, get reviews, gauge interest in it, and make some money while you’re doing it. For a first-timer, this seems like a pretty sweet deal.

And at the end of the 90 days? I can do another splash when I port it to other formats.

Now… tools you need here. Run, do not walk, over to Calibre and download their software (runs on Windows and OS X). This is a free, open-source program that allows you to convert your files. All you have to do is save your manuscript in HTML format (all major word processing programs should allow you to do this), import it into Calibre, and convert it to anything from .EPUB to .MOBI. You’re already going to be messing with an HTML file for the inevitable typo you will find (KDP requires edits be done in HTML form), so this should be easy.

Best of all, you can work from one file and not have to pay a third-party a percentage of your sales like you do with Smashwords. Sure, it’s easier to pop it in once and be done with it, but again, we’re broke. Every penny counts.

By the way, feel free to drop me a message or comment here on Goodreads if you have questions or want to know details about anything I’ve posted so far.

Subtitle this one: A work in progress or OMG I have no idea here.

Okay, so obviously I’m lying about having no idea. I have a little bit of an idea. A tiny bit of one. Some little gems that hopefully sparkle for those of you, who, like me, have no money and a need to get your book into people’s hands.

1. Social media

I heard that groan! Stop it now!

Here’s the thing: if you aren’t participating in social media before you self-publish your book, you are probably already too late. It’s next to impossible to make up ground when you are simultaneously trying to build your audience and SELL to that audience.

So you should be doing your social media stuff from the second that plot bunny hops into your head.

a. THAT BEING SAID, there are ways to work this. Are you on email? THAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA. Sure, it’s old-school, but it WORKS. You just have to be genuine. Don’t email people with “here buy my book” and definitely don’t spam people (for instance, by emailing every single contact person, including those agents who rejected you). Email the people you think would seriously be interested. Take the tone of “Hey, I did this thing and would love it if you would check it out. NO PRESSURE.”

While obviously, I’d love it if every single person I know bought my book, that’s not realistic. But if every single person I know checks out my book? And maybe brags about it to friends even though they don’t want to read it? Boom. Marketing.

b. Use what you have.

In other words, don’t go out there and sign up for a bunch of things just to try to sell your book. You are going to end up spreading yourself too thin, and the time you spend won’t be justified in sales, in all likelihood. Odds are, if you’re reading this post, you’re either on tumblr or Goodreads (or know someone else who is). Or you found it through Twitter. USE THOSE, but don’t be spammy. Be yourself, and limit the number of times you post your pitch.

Facebook is the devil, but the cool thing is that the people on there are probably your actual friends and family. Who want you to succeed. Or they are people who hated your guts in high school but will be more than happy to pimp your book based on the “I know this person” idea if it takes off. Take advantage of that good will.

The other great part about those folks? They’ll often be honest about things. They’ll point out typos or complain you don’t have a dead-tree version of your book. Listen to them.

2. The dreaded review sites

We all live in fear of the review sites. Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. But here’s the thing: those reviews get your name out there, and get people to notice you.

Most important: take what you get there and be grateful people are reading it. DO NOT go off on people who give you a bad review, no matter how personal an attack it seems.

I’m a pretty blunt person, so I love arguing points, but if you do choose to go that route (and believe me, I don’t recommend it), be polite and respectful and thank the person for their insights. Sleep on it. They may have something valuable to say that you can’t see right away because it feels like someone attacking your babies.

Most of all, you are going to have to interact some to get the ball rolling. Tweet the best 4- and 5-star reviews OCCASIONALLY. Link them up on your Facebook. The reviewers like knowing they are appreciated, and if it gets you a little mojo in the meantime, yay!

3. Bloggers

Here’s where you need to pick your plan of action.

Let’s face it; there are some bad apples who spoiled some barrels for the rest of us. Acting in an unprofessional manner and ranting about horrible book bloggers does no one any favors, least of all yourself. There are a lot of bloggers who simply refuse to review self-published books at all these days.

My advice? WORK AROUND THAT. And the easiest way is going to involve some time and effort, because you need to do the always-hated: RESEARCH.

First, you need to find a blog that fits your book. Don’t spam every high-level book blogger there is. Look for blogs that focus on your genre, or if — like me — your book sort of avoids pigeonholing, look for blogs that handle that well. Definitely don’t pitch your space opera to a romance blog unless you know they also like space opera. Or there’s a serious romance in there. Tangential is not going to cut it here.

Second, see what that blog’s policies are regarding self-published books. Some won’t touch them. Others are more friendly. Obviously, go with the latter. Did I really need to explain that?

Third, look to friends/acquaintances with blogs who might be willing to review books. Or do an interview. Or let you guest post. Offer CONTENT here, not just a sales pitch.

Fourth, look for blogs you can help as well. Let’s face it; we’re all in this together. If you have a nice twitter following, and there’s a newer blog that doesn’t have the following of a bigger one, you can help them out with increased attention as well. This isn’t all about what people can do for you; look for opportunities you can help others out as well.

Fifth, GIVE REVIEWERS AN OFFER OF A FREE COPY. IN THEIR PREFERRED FORMAT. I cannot stress this enough. I’m a reviewer first, author second (no, please don’t send me your book right now; I’m already stressed to the max trying to review AND sell my book, but thank you). Reviewing a book takes HOURS, from reading the book to writing up the review. And whether you’re paid for that review or not, that’s an investment of time. Making it easy to read and handing it right over is KEY to establishing a great relationship with reviewers (who might then want to review subsequent books… keep in mind this is not a short-term goal here).

Moreover, TRUST THE REVIEWERS. Are there some book blogs where the reviewers share the PDFs they get? I’d be lying if I said there aren’t. Shoot, I know some of them by name. But you can’t start out a relationship with someone if you can’t trust them. Don’t watermark or try to force a reviewer to buy your book to protect yourself. It’s tacky. If you include a typo Easter egg or send different versions out so you later know if one turns up on a torrent site which person did it to you? That’s your business. But don’t paint all reviewers with the same brush. Most of us are FANATICALLY ethical about our ARCs. I even delete mine and re-buy the book if I loved it enough to want to reread. And usually at full retail.


4. Cultivate friends who will help you.

I can’t say this enough. And no, I don’t mean using people. This is the OPPOSITE of what I mean.

Don’t join those RT circles or groups who promise to buy each others’ books. Those are short-term goals. What you need to do is be a true friend to the real-life people who ARE your friends. Offer your support to them for things they need, even if it’s unasked for.

In other words? PAY IT FORWARD. Those people will be thrilled to help when it’s your turn, and will be your staunchest advocates when you’re trying to sell your book. But viewing social media as a marketing tool and not the social interactions it’s really designed for is a huge error, and will turn off the very people who could be telling every person they know about your fabulous book.

I’m going to start this post off with a disclaimer.

I find EvilWylie hilarious. We chat occasionally. His parody of Fifty Shames of Grey (Fifty Shames of Earl Grey) is one of the most hysterical things I’ve ever read and I’m proud as hell that I still own (I think) the most popular Amazon review of it. The thread that prompted this post did not offend me in the slightest. But I still felt compelled to comment on it, because let’s face it; self-publishing still has an aura of fail.

The thread on Twitter can mostly be found under the hashtag #honestauthorselfpromo and was prompted by this post on HuffPo.

I read the post on HuffPo and groaned. GROANED. I knew exactly how it was going to play out after I read it, and wasn’t disappointed in my expectations.

Which sucks.

Everyone comes to the place of self-publishing in a different manner. And yes, there are a LOT of us who got here because we didn’t get representation. Or we didn’t get picked up on submission.

And that’s life. But posting the whole “I’m so bitter about trade publishing that I am going to SHOW EVERYONE (please buy my books)” message alienates people and tends to be the bad apple in the barrel: everything else is suspect.

I don’t hide the fact that I queried, and that I queried widely. No, I did not get representation. I received some great rejections and a couple of truly terrible ones (one of which led to what I think is a much better novel than the one I queried with). But the longer I queried and the more I got rejections and the more I watched the market and what was trending, I realized where I was headed.

Other than agents, I only ever queried one small press, and it was only because I really respected one of the editors there. Even when I did that, however, I knew it wasn’t going to be picked up for the exact reason I decided to self-publish: My book doesn’t fit anywhere.

I have a tendency to write so far off the curve of a trend that I can’t see the trend from my spaceship. In a climate where erotica and romance are huge, I tend to write without a lot of sex and a missing romance arc. You might be able to skew it as women’s fiction, but I have essentially a male MC, and my book has none of the usual conventions of women’s fiction. It’s not really a mystery, definitely not a thriller, and if you were to give me a huge box and send me into a Barnes & Noble and say “Put it anywhere,” I’d be hard-pressed to find the right sign at the top of a shelf.

That makes it hard to market. And I could nod along with rejections that didn’t know what to do with it or how to sell it. This is a climate where you NEED to know what to do with it.

So I was left with two options: let it sit there forever and hope the market turned around, or do something with it.

But the more I thought about it, the more I thought maybe I’m NOT cut out for trade publication. Let’s face it; I’m a pretty blunt individual. I’m not going to be able to play nice and pretend I LOVE a book that’s alongside mine at my imprint just because we share the same editor. I lack a poker face altogether. I accept and acknowledge that I’m a marketing disaster.

And.. I needed to supplement my income. I could try to find a home with a small press, but the reality is I don’t fit very well there either, and let’s face it; I can do all my own marketing and all my own tech work and keep all my own money without having to share it with a press.

Honest Author Promo: I’m doing it for the cold, hard cash.

I don’t expect I’m going to be some breakout success. I don’t expect my tiny little book is going to show all those agents who didn’t offer representation how AMAZING I am. I have exactly zero plans to get rich and famous here.

What I DO hope is that I can maybe get close enough to paying some of the ridiculous expenses my kids have this fall with a little book that was doing nothing but taking up space on my hard drive. There are people who inexplicably want to read this book (which thrills me to bits) and if that number isn’t in the tens of thousands, that’s okay.

How’s that for an honest author promo?

And did I mention Petey’s tap shoes are $64.00? Plus tax? And let’s not talk about the ballet shoes. Or the $12 she and her sister tend to go through like tissues. So if you’d like, you can buy my book on Amazon. Or, if you have Prime, you can even borrow it for free! I’m great with that, too.

subtitled: goals

We had a little break in the action here while I was busy and um… on my soapbox for a bit.

But I want to return to the topic of self-publishing with no money, especially since I had the laughable experience this week of trying to set up UNDYING in paperback form (coming soon to an Amazon screen near you!) and didn’t realize I’d have to BUY a copy, and I didn’t have enough money to even buy the copy at cost. So heh.

But I’ve watched a few promotions recently by self-published and micro-published authors, and to be honest, I felt a little squicky.

Promotions are a great way to get your book higher on Amazon (B&N, Kobo, iBookstore, etc.) charts. We all know this. Amanda Hocking showed us the way. And tying that promo into a contest or another sort of promo may boost the book higher for a short period, with some remaining holdover once it’s over.

That being said, I’ve also seen the research that says discounting your book is devaluing your book. That you are better off using the free days with KDP, for instance, than discounting your book to, say, 99 cents.

Obviously, I don’t have all the research in front of me. But I’m willing to buy into that theory.

Here’s my goal: to have steady sales.

I’m not concerned about being high on lists all the time or selling hundreds of discounted books over a weekend. I’m in this for the long haul, and the long haul requires regular sales, right?

The things I’ve read about discounting say that once you’ve done that, your book is then mentally valued at that lower price; if you started out at $4.99 and discount it to $0.99 for a short bump, what is the likelihood people are going to go back to buying it at $4.99 when the promo is over?

I’m going to level with you; I haven’t checked my sales numbers. For all I know, I’ve sold 10 books overall. But what I do check is my salesrank on Amazon. If it’s not drastically dipping, I figure I’m probably selling at least a book a day. And that’s more than I anticipated when I started out here, so I’m okay with that.

I think it’s important to set those goals when you start out so you aren’t lured into the shoulds and shouldn’ts once you get started. What are your goals for self-publishing? And what are you willing to sacrifice to get there? And how much does it cost?

This seems to be a confusing concept for a lot of people out there, so it begs to be explained that most authors not only don’t get rich from writing; most of them can’t even make a LIVING from writing.

Think about that for a second. Most authors do not make a living from writing.

In other words, they work full-time jobs PLUS write. And with the way the industry is, they have to do marketing and social media and signings all on top of that. Plus, they have to have a life in there with family and friends.

There seems to be this mentality that once you publish a book, suddenly you are, like, Beyonce rich. Trump rich. Hilton rich.

I hate to break it to you, but that’s not the way it works.

For starters, let’s take trade publishing. If you sign with a Big Five/Six publisher, odds are you get an advance. Yay, money! But it’s not like some money stork drops a bag o’cash out of the sky. That advance is broken up into parts, often a percentage on contract signing, a percentage on delivery of the final revision, a percentage when the book comes out.

After that? NO MORE MONEY unless you do something that’s called “earning out.” In other words, all those copies that sell? Mean NOTHING until the author has sold enough copies for the royalties to EQUAL THE AMOUNT OF THE ADVANCE. Take a minute and digest that. If you don’t see as many copies as the publisher projected you might sell? That’s all the money the author will ever get.

Now, from there, don’t forget that the author is undoubtedly paying an agent 15% of that (more on foreign sales) and you suddenly see there’s not as much money as you thought. It’s not like you get an advance PLUS all those sales. Nope. And a lot of those things like blog tours and advertising may be paid for by the author directly unless they are what’s known as a “lead title” or are assigned a nice, fat marketing budget by the publisher. Same thing with swag, which is nearly ALWAYS paid for by the authors.

NOW… for the self-published authors (::waves and says hi::). Here’s how much fun it is. If, like me, you don’t have a lot (read: any) of money to spend on things like blog tours and advertising and swag, you might be lucky enough to malinger somewhere around the self-pubbed midlist: slow and steady sales, but nothing that’s ever going to make a NYT bestseller chart (note, I don’t list Amazon bestsellers because that’s going to be another whole post).

Due to the former trend of low-priced ebooks making bestsellers, there’s a limit to what self-pubbed authors can charge for their ebooks, especially as debut authors. Our paperbacks are almost ALWAYS POD (print on demand), which has a wicked high cost. Even if an author DID afford a print run, those expenses all came out of pocket.

Let’s take my book, for instance, since at the end of the day, I want to sell you a copy or four. The Kindle version of UNDYING sells for $2.99. That’s the lowest price you can set and have Amazon pay you 70% of the cover price.

Yes, if you’re doing the math here, you can determine I net about $2 a book. WHEE! Now think about that for a second. At $2 a book, I need to sell 100 copies of that book just to net $200. On which I still have to pay taxes. That’s not a lot of money. That doesn’t even cover my gas for the month with today’s prices.

Now let’s look at the paperback version (same book), which I did through Createspace. Now, don’t get me wrong; Createspace is awesome, and provides some amazing benefits, like free set-up and a free ISBN. But they take a hefty chunk of change, not to mention how much sheer cost is for POD books. The paperback version of UNDYING has a list price of $10.99. Sounds a little pricey for a self-published debut author, right? Let me explain that $10.99 is the lowest price I could possibly set for that book and NOT LOSE MONEY ON EACH SALE.

Digest that for a second. I would LOSE money on each sale were I to set the price lower. At $10.99, I make less per sale than I do on a Kindle sale, and to top it off, since I think you should get to have both versions of a book if you buy a dead-tree version, you get the Kindle book FREE if you buy the paperback.

So you now know how many books I would need to sell to even make a living. Let’s estimate 17,500 books in a year based on the current pricing and net for my book to get a nice, round figure of $30,000 per year.

Odds are, that’s not going to happen. At least not with only one book out.

Now, there are also these fun things for trade published authors called “reserves against returns” in which they publisher estimates a certain number of books will be returned by the stores. Or the buyers. Or both. And then there are discounts. While some trade published authors are lucky enough to have contracts that pay their royalties based on a percentage of cover price, many have contracts that pay based on a percentage of SALE price. So if your publisher — or Amazon — discounts the book? Royalties go down.

Same thing happens to self-published authors if Amazon up and decides to make your book free. Or a competing site lowers your price. Or you decide to put the book on sale to try to get higher on a chart.

So the next time you ask an author to hand over a paper copy of a book for review because that’s what you prefer, or you break the DRM on a book to send to all your friends because you loved the book so much, just give a little thought of how much that author is really making. Not everyone has a Danielle Steel success story.

Lauren Dane had a great series of tweets today about using social media.

Unfortunately, the audience for those tweets probably has no idea what she said. The reason? They aren’t using social media as a social platform.

At some point in the past few years, the idea of social media became “a new way to sell things.” And the people who’ve been using social media for ages pretty much said “Yeah, not happening here.”

As Dane pointed out, you can have a million followers. And you can tweet or post or tumble to that audience all damn day.

And odds are, you won’t make a single sale unless you do the most important thing: ENGAGE.

There’s this propensity in the writerly world to think more followers means more sales. And then you have the circles of authors who all retweet and repost items for each other until it’s a giant echo chamber of noise. The thing is? I haven’t seen most of those things work in the long run.

However, you can have a small but loyal group of followers who will move heaven and earth to sell things for you… if you engage. Do I retweet friends’ books? Absolutely. But I also talk to people and answer questions and post articles I think are relevant. My tumblr has writing stuff and music I love and fun things I see along the way. My Facebook author page has information about how to buy my books, but I also post interesting links and questions I think might interest people who are interested in my books. And my Twitter is a non-stop access to my brain, Being John Malkovich style, with an occasional pimp of my stuff or friends’ stuff.

But the biggest help to me is that I had my network established long before I had a book to sell. I’ve been on Facebook and Twitter for nearly as long as you COULD be on them as the general public. I’ve been on Goodreads for two years as a reviewer and librarian. I’ve been on tumblr reblogging fandom things and gender politics for ages as well.

In other words, I pretty much already had people who liked ME, so odds are, they might like what else I’m writing.

The time to establish yourself on social media is NOW. Not when you sign a book contract or when your book is out. RIGHT NOW. And don’t just sell. People will unfollow you, even your friends. Trust me. The perfect example was Tahereh Mafi, who was very active on social media long before anyone knew she had a book. And even now, 99% of here social media presence has NOTHING TO DO WITH HER BOOKS. Just be YOU and be SOCIAL. Not salesy. You’ll do a lot better. And maybe make more sales.

For those of you who downloaded Undying in the first few days after release, you know there were several typos and some formatting issues.

I'm horrible about letting things go, and I kept editing AFTER I had the book edited, meaning I introduced new errors (and a few formatting issues as well).

I can't live with a book like that, however. Yes, even big publishers often have books with typos in them, but to have several errors is simply not my style. Not when people are paying for my book.

As such, I fixed them. I've been updating the file every time I caught something (or someone caught something for me), but those who purchased the book in the first few days have the most errors in their copies.

I asked Amazon if they would kindly push that update out to buyers. If you already have notes and things highlighted and can live with the errors, feel free to keep the copy you have. If you do want everything corrected, however, you have to follow the directions in the email you should have received from Amazon to download it; even having automatic updates turned on won't do it for you for this one.

As always, thank you so much for your support. Those of you waiting for the iBooks/Nook/Kobo version, please thank your Amazon-purchasing neighbors for suffering through the kinks while I put this first book out.

I have some exciting things coming up in the next couple of months, so stay tuned! I can't wait to share them with you!