Cyndy Aleo's Blog, page 7

UNDYING is on a list!

Those of you who've known me for a while know that odd things please me. Two awesome things happened this week: a low rating of the book coming from a country where the book isn't available (a twofer! Book pirating AND a negative rating! People are SEEKING ME OUT to dislike me. Also, someone other than family/friends read my book!)

The other is that Undying made its first list here on Goodreads. The best part? It's a dubious distinction; the list is Authors Who Used to Write Fan Fic. 

Again, those of you who know me know how much this entertains me. 

That being said, it's currently tied for 20th with the likes of Cecilia Tan and S.E. Hinton, so you know I'm going to squee even if it's an odd little list, but if you'd like to vote for FORMER FAN FIC AUTHORS, click here. 

I'm happy so long as my book is higher on the list than FIFTY SHADES.

LASTLY, for those of you who are interested in, or want to learn more about, fan fiction, I have an essay in an AMAZING book coming out this December. It's edited by Anne Jamison, who is super-smart but also really good at sorting the wheat from the chaff when it comes to "need to know" information, and includes famous people and NYT and USA Today bestselling authors, and yes, little old me. So check out FIC: WHY FANFICTION IS TAKING OVER THE WORLD.

Let Me Explain You a Thing: Social Media Is Supposed to Be Social

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.

Let me explain you a thing: Social media is supposed to be social

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.

Join me for NaNoWriMo!

If you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, it's National Novel Writing Month, and it begins 1 November.

The challenge: write 50,000 words in one month, "completing" a novel in those 30 days.

I've done NaNo every year since 2007 (except for last year). Two uncompleted novels were turned into fan fiction. My first completed novel (2009 now that I look at it) was Undying, and by "completed" I mean I wrote 50,000 words. It turned into 80,000 during the first few edits, then dropped to 40,000, then finally ended up at a bit over 86,000 words by the end.

I didn't finish in 2010, but I had the germ of an idea (it originally involved aliens) that I turned into a New Adult folk mythology novel that I'm hoping to have out as my next release.

2011 was another bad year, and in 2012, I'd just lost my job (which, to be honest, was a bad fit, but still... lost my job) and I didn't participate at all.

My goal for this year is to finish the sequel to Undying (called Unfinished, no pun intended) so I can have that ready for release next spring. It's outlined and I'm raring to go, but can always use the external conscience of the masses to keep me going. 50,000 more words in 30 days is a killer pace, so if you help me, I'll help you. It usually gets bad in the same place novels do: in the soggy middle.

Won't you be my buddy? http://nanowrimo.org/participants/fourlittlebees

Join me for NaNoWriMo!

If you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, it's National Novel Writing Month, and it begins 1 November.

The challenge: write 50,000 words in one month, "completing" a novel in those 30 days.

I've done NaNo every year since 2007 (except for last year). Two uncompleted novels were turned into fan fiction. My first completed novel (2009 now that I look at it) was Undying, and by "completed" I mean I wrote 50,000 words. It turned into 80,000 during the first few edits, then dropped to 40,000, then finally ended up at a bit over 86,000 words by the end.

I didn't finish in 2010, but I had the germ of an idea (it originally involved aliens) that I turned into a New Adult folk mythology novel that I'm hoping to have out as my next release. 

2011 was another bad year, and in 2012, I'd just lost my job (which, to be honest, was a bad fit, but still... lost my job) and I didn't participate at all.

My goal for this year is to finish the sequel to Undying (called Unfinished, no pun intended) so I can have that ready for release next spring. It's outlined and I'm raring to go, but can always use the external conscience of the masses to keep me going. 50,000 more words in 30 days is a killer pace, so if you help me, I'll help you. It usually gets bad in the same place novels do: in the soggy middle.

Won't you be my buddy? http://nanowrimo.org/participants/fourlittlebees

There Shouldn't Be a Breast Cancer Awareness Month

In some ways, I'm glad that Emily Helck's story has gone viral via Mashable. Because, you know, it's October, and sometimes the whole breast cancer awareness thing needs a human face on it instead of just pink slapped all over everything.

Unfortunately, Emily's story isn't the first. And it won't be the last. Before her came Kerry Mansfield's Chronicle of a Mastectomy, which is one of the most gut-punching photo essays I've seen. And there was Adriene Hughes' (the name is just a coincidence; I found her today when I was hunting links for Jen Merendino and Kerry Mansfield's stories) documentation of her 2004 battle with breast cancer. And the most painful one: Angelo Merendino's documentation of his wife's fight -- and death. Angelo is a real-life Cam for me. I hate that there are countless Cams out there.

Because the pink on everything isn't doing everything.

There are still women, like the Adrienne in my book, who are diagnosed pre-menopause, and there are a lot of young women out there who don't think they need to do breast self-exams and be vigilant. My mother had pre-menopausal breast cancer. I have a friend who is fighting now, who is my age, and has been fighting for years. And I lost a college friend who left behind young children when she died in her early 30s.

Breast cancer rates are on the rise in black women. Yes. On the rise. Going up. An increasing number of black women will be counted among the deaths this year, simply because awareness and screening are not as prevalent among Cultures Other Than White. The pink campaign is not targeting African-American women. Or Latinas. And we need to change that.

Men get breast cancer, too. And in that sea of pink, are you seeing any outreach toward educating men about signs, symptoms, and screening? I'm not either.

And lastly, for every Angelina Jolie, who could not only afford the genetic screening (which is thousands of dollars and not covered by many insurance companies) but also prophylactic mastectomy, there are those of us who still don't have insurance. I'm lucky in that my community has a program for low-income, uninsured women to get screened. More resources can be found online.

Breast cancer is very real to me, and very personal. It's probably why I used it as the subject for my novel. But I'm even more passionate about things like getting health insurance for everyone, something that shouldn't be on the table in the current ridiculousness going on in Washington. And in getting "awareness" to the point where everyone is aware, not only white women. And a future in which my October no longer turns pink.

There shouldn't be a breast cancer awareness month

In some ways, I'm glad that Emily Helck's story has gone viral via Mashable. Because, you know, it's October, and sometimes the whole breast cancer awareness thing needs a human face on it instead of just pink slapped all over everything.

 

Unfortunately, Emily's story isn't the first. And it won't be the last. Before her came Kerry Mansfield'sChronicle of a Mastectomy, which is one of the most gut-punching photo essays I've seen. And there was Adriene Hughes' (the name is just a coincidence; I found her today when I was hunting links for Jen Merendino and Kerry Mansfield's stories) documentation of her 2004 battle with breast cancer. And the most painful one: Angelo Merendino's documentation of his wife's fight -- and death. Angelo is a real-life Cam for me. I hate that there are countless Cams out there.

 

Because the pink on everything isn't doing everything.

 

There are still women, like the Adrienne in my book, who are diagnosed pre-menopause, and there are a lot of young women out there who don't think they need to do breast self-exams and be vigilant. My mother had pre-menopausal breast cancer. I have a friend who is fighting now, who is my age, and has been fighting for years. And I lost a college friend who left behind young children when she died in her early 30s.

 

Breast cancer rates are on the rise in black women. Yes. On the rise. Going up. An increasing number of black women will be counted among the deaths this year, simply because awareness and screening are not as prevalent among Cultures Other Than White. The pink campaign is not targeting African-American women. Or Latinas. And we need to change that.

 

Men get breast cancer, too. And in that sea of pink, are you seeing any outreach toward educating men about signs, symptoms, and screening? I'm not either.

 

And lastly, for every Angelina Jolie, who could not only afford the genetic screening (which is thousands of dollars and not covered by many insurance companies) but also prophylactic mastectomy, there are those of us who still don't have insurance. I'm lucky in that my community has a program for low-income, uninsured women to get screened. More resources can be found online.

 

Breast cancer is very real to me, and very personal. It's probably why I used it as the subject for my novel. But I'm even more passionate about things like getting health insurance for everyone, something that shouldn't be on the table in the current ridiculousness going on in Washington. And in getting "awareness" to the point where everyone is aware, not only white women. And a future in which my October no longer turns pink.

Let Me Explain You a Thing: Why Most Authors Are Not Rich

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.

Self-Publishing When You Are Broke, Part Five

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?

The Self-Publishing Aura of Fail

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.