Adventures of an Indie: Year One in Review

Winter, 2010.

This December 1st will mark an anniversary for me.

On that day, one year ago, I published the hardcopy (ironically, a paperback) edition my debut novel, Progeny (The Children of the White Lions, #1).

Lines wrapped around blocks outside bookstores across the country as hundreds of thousands of anxious, excited fans waited to purchase the hard copy edition. I was forced to wade through the tsunami of interview requests I received. I single-handedly brought down Twitter that day with the hashtag #awesomebook. You remember that, right? There was a story on CNN about it.

Okay, so none of that happened. A year ago, I did not even have a Twitter account. Which—ahem—is @AuthorRTKaelin, by the way.

In truth, I think I sold maybe five or six copies on day one. For the month of December, I might have sold a total of twenty. The only sales list I topped was the “Kaelin Extended Family Holiday Purchases.”

Paradoxically, it was both a terribly exciting and mind-numbingly dull period.

“How many books did I sell so far? 12? Okay…”

[Refresh the page]

“Still 12?”

[Refresh the page]

“Huh…12. That’s odd…”

That is what being an independent author looks like at the beginning; something I did not know at the time. I suppose I was naïve—heck, I was totally naïve—thinking that somehow (magic!) the book would gain traction on its own. People would find it, right? I wrote a great story, so the world should just know it’s there? By osmosis or something.

Guess what? Not so much.

After that first month, I felt adrift, wondering what I should do. I came to the realization that it was my responsibility to do something. I am indie. That means I am author, editor, marketing department, publicist, intern, cover artist, janitor, etc. For something to happen with Progeny, I needed to market the book actively. Not knowing where to begin, I simply tried everything I could think of.

I found some websites that catered to readers, LibraryThing.com and GoodReads.com, and did what I could to set up a presence there. I did an online interview hosted by members of the community at LibraryThing. I created my own website. Then, I sat back and waited.

“Phew! That was a lot of work… Come on, success!”

Surely, that was enough, right? Again, not so much.

I reached out to local high schools, offering to speak about the writing process. I gave talks to a half-dozen schools and really enjoyed the experience, but again, that was not necessarily going to get the word out as I wanted.

What else could I do?

“Reviews! Books have reviews! I wrote a book! Maybe I should get my book some of those…”

This is when I graduated from seasoned neophyte to amateur novice. You see, I sent out copies to a number of review locations…like the New York Times and the other giants of the industry. They surely love getting books from debut indie authors that no one has ever heard of, right?

Go ahead. Laugh at my ignorance. I am going to grab a glass of water while you compose yourself.

Done? Good. Let us continue...

Fortunately, a flash of inspiration drove me to Google where I typed “Book Review Sites” and stumbled across dozens of bloggers who reviewed books. After taking the time to find ones that reviewed epic fantasy, I contacted a few (not enough, at first) and sent books to those sites interested. Then I waited again.

“Let’s goooooo success... I’m waiting…”

As it turns out, people who write for book review blogs have many, many, many books to read. Getting around to Progeny took time.

While I waited, I decided to look into this whole ‘ebook’ thing. To this point, Progeny was only available in paperback, and at $25.99 per copy, I was coming to the conclusion that the price was cost prohibitive for many readers. Unfortunately, I write EPIC epic fantasy. Progeny is 672, 6.75'' x 9.25'' pages. I priced the book where I did simply because my printing costs were so high. Royalties per copy in extended distribution were barely over $1.

Since ebooks do not have printing costs (cause there is no paper, you see… ;)), I could price the book more appropriately to the market. That might help me get some new readers, right?

Eureka.

In the first month I released Progeny on the Kindle, my ebook sales outpaced my paperback sales by an 8:1 margin. Number of copies sold inexplicably continues to increase every month. Word of mouth seems to have taken over.

Spring, 2011

Some of the first reviews started trickling in, and to my happy surprise, they were effusive in their praise. Some of the authors I was being compared against are the giants of the genre. It was quite humbling and continues to be every time I see another one come out.

“So, what next? What else can I do?”

I live in Columbus, OH. Every summer, there’s a large gaming convention here called Origins—a four-day affair for people who love playing all sorts of games. I thought it might be a good opportunity for me to get a table and maybe try to sell some copies of Progeny. I contacted the convention to inquire about the cost of a table and was informed they had an author’s program as a part of the convention. I was directed to contact the woman responsible for the program, but I had to hurry; the deadline was a day or two away.

Fortune smiled on me and I met Jean Rabe. She has been writing for mumble-mumble years and has more books and stories published than I can count. She is a wonderful, helpful, and kind woman who was willing to offer me a spot in The Library and place me on a few panels with other, much-more established authors to discuss writing.

Summer, 2011

The Origins experience was phenomenal.

Intimidated by the other authors at first (Timothy Zahn and Michael Stackpole were there, after all), I was hesitant to say much. However, as it turns out, authors are people and most of them are very, very nice (Michael Stackpole in particular). The panels were a blast. An opportunity to talk about something about which I am passionate? Yes, please. I sold a sizable chunk of books (really, why did I think I should charge more for a signed copy? What a rookie…) and made some great contacts.

Realizing the value of conventions, I searched for others. GenCon—four times the size of Origins—in Indianapolis was within driving distance, but their “Authors’ Avenue” was sold out. Again, Jean Rabe came to my rescue and slipped me in on some panels when one of the other authors had to cancel. No table to sell, but—again—the experience of meeting other authors and learning from them was invaluable.

Other conventions, especially ones more writing-centric, were less enthusiastic to welcome an indie author. The publishing world is changing, and some in the old guard have certain opinions set in stone about us. No matter. One more obstacle which I will overcome.

Time passed.

I contacted more blogs and websites and got another round of reviews floating around the web. I did some guest posts at blogs about writing, the advent of ebooks, the trials of self-publishing…pretty much whatever I could to get my name out there.

Oh, and I continued to write.

Here is the funny thing about writing an epic fantasy series: the story is only getting warmed up in the first book. The Children of the White Lion series is no different. From the moment that I said “I’m done” with Progeny (the first time—more on that later), I knew exactly how book two would start. So, I had started it back in December. By summer, I was three-quarters of the way through the manuscript.

Surprisingly enough, I had come to develop a sort of following by that point. Readers were contacting me via a number of social media outlets, asking about when book two was going to come out. As my long-term plan was to get Progeny picked up by a traditional publisher, I did not want to release the sequel quite yet.

My readers' enthusiasm triggered another idea on how to promote Progeny. It was an exciting thought, so I put aside book two and spent my limited free time on this new endeavor.

The Terrene Chronicles were born.

Fall, 2011

I intended for The Terrene Chronicles to be a series of stand-alone short stories that were precursors to the events of Progeny. I thought if I gave them away free via my website, I would draw in readers to the novel itself. To this day, I do not really know if that worked or not. It is quite hard to track something like that.

Regardless, I wrote them. As of this moment, eleven have been released. The first three were bundled together as Merchant. The second three were Family. And the third three go together as Rivals. The last four (once I release #12) will be bundled as Deception. If I count the total words in the ‘short’ stories, there are over 200,000, two-thirds the length of Progeny itself (and as it so happens, two-thirds of the now-finished book two).

As I said, I started writing them with the intention they would be a way for me to further market Progeny. What it turned into was a massive writing exercise that allowed me to refine my skill as an author. As it turns out, writing a lone book is insufficient to becoming a prolific, top-notch author. You see, it takes work. Who would have thought?

Realizing my earlier inadequacies, I went back and re-edited Progeny. Wow. If you would like to read about that exercise, you can do so here. Short version: it needed work.

The good news is the updated edition is what you now get on the Kindle an Nook.

Now.

That brings us to today. Where is that, exactly?

To date, I have sold close to 2500 copies of Progeny, with 85% of those sales as ebooks. The novel has reached #6 on Amazon’s Top Rated Epic Fantasy for Kindle books and #15 overall for the Fantasy genre.

A year ago, I was a no-name fantasy author releasing his first book. Now, I have a loyal following of readers who have been anxiously prodding me, wondering when the sequel will be ready. I have a few irons in the fire regarding the next phase of my writing career, but looking back on this adventure makes me realize just how far I have come.

I made dozens of mistakes, simply because I did not know any better.

I learned what works and what does not by trial and error.

I met some fantastic people in the process, online and off.

I have been happy, frustrated, upset, elated, excited, dejected...you name an emotion, and I probably experienced it.

All of it has been a lot of work but I would not change anything about the past year.

And I cannot wait to see what the next year brings.