The Writer’s Market: What I’ve learned and what I would do differently.
The world of writing is a fascinating place these days. It is easier than ever to communicate with (most) of your favourite writers and read what they have to say about how to chase after success as an author. It is also simpler to find the people who make their living writing novels (or novellas/short stories), but might not be super-famous or tremendously wealthy (yet). The first thing that struck me was how easy it is to publish a book now. Writing a book is probably a little bit easier than it used to be, but self-publishing on amazon and other sites has simply removed the gatekeepers from the equation. If you can’t get an agent or publisher to pick up your work you can give it a go on your own. Of course, it goes without saying, that many books that are passed up by the Publishers/Agents are ignored because they aren’t very well written or appeal to a very small audience.
As I noted, it is easy to publish now, but it is harder to get noticed among the flood of titles. Most amazon titles earn around 350$ in a year, and while an author/publisher does not have to risk a huge investment in advance anymore 350$ is still a pathetic return on the time it takes to write a book as well as a tremendous blow to the ego. I suspect the later is more important to a writer. I want people to read and like my book, more than just about anything. The pure satisfaction I get when someone tells me they like it, is only surpassed by the feeling of accomplishment that I felt when I finished that first draft. So I’d say that getting noticed is a major hurdle for any author, especially one who does not have a major publisher promoting for them.
As an aside, the second thing that struck me, which I won’t get into here is just how much many publishers/agents/etc resent eBooks and self-published authors. It is an industry in turmoil; a war-zone full of vicious words, resistance to change, and lamentation.
The writer’s market fascinates me. I do so love an industry in flux. I have read quite a bit of theorycraft on how to market and promote my work. I tend to be very suspicious of most of the advice I get, unless I have a rapport with the source. Many people who succeed make the mistake of viewing their life and behaviour as a recipe to perfectly replicate their success. I’ve seen what sort of mindset that nonsensical view can create, and I’m pretty good at sniffing it out. If someone cannot explain why they think their advice works in a way that makes sense to me, I don’t listen to them. If I find multiple, disparate sources preaching similar advice I tend to sit up and notice. Here are some of the things that I have learned about the writer’s market and how I would change my initial strategy based on what I know now. (Take all of this with a grain of salt, of course, I am still just a newbie)
#1 Write More. No, really. This is by far the most consistent advice that I have heard. From successful self-published authors to many of the big names in Fantasy, I have come across this consistently Many new authors are now writing several books before diving into the world of writing, just to generate additional interest. Here are some of the reasons why I have heard that this is of paramount importance.
Your books act as advertisements for your other books. Each book you put up on amazon or other sites points to your other books.Some authors feel that this is so important that they will put up short stories featuring characters from their main works as well. It certainly helps with search engines.
Since it is so easy for people to publish a book now, readers are often unimpressed by self-published work. Having more books helps convince those readers that you are serious.
If you have written a series you can run promotions on a single book on that series and enjoy a bump in sales on the other parts.
More works = more reviews
Blogging is also part of this, if people run into your blog and like it, it acts as an ad as well (hint!, hint!)
Had I known this, I mean really understood it when I wrote Bloodlust #1 I probably would have split the first book into two regularly sized novels and released the second one fairly quickly. As it is I’m torn between releasing #2 as two smaller, cheaper works or just continuing on as I am.
#2 Keywords, Titles and Tags. It is of paramount importance that you choose the right keywords so that your eBook comes up on the searches that people your target audience are going to make. These often overlooked but very important nonetheless. If you have written a book with Dragons in it, and don’t tag it with Dragons or have Dragons in the title then you potentially lose out every time someone uses the search term Dragon. Google analytics can be somewhat helpful for this.
Some veteran authors/publishers who want to cash in big, or just want to get as wide an audience as they can for a particular work will craft a title from the big buzzwords in their genre. Others will try to get ahead of the curve and guess what the next big terms are.
Bloodlust isn’t about Dragons, Assassins, Shadows or anything like that so I don’t find this advice that useful. On the other hand Bloodlust does kind of make my book sound like an urban fantasy vampire book so maybe I’d change that slightly or make Sadira a vampire…
#3 When to Promote. Established authors often heavily promote their work, but most people say that you should hold off heavy promotion until you are have at least 3 books ready to go. Promotion can be time consuming, especially for a self-published author so this really makes sense. Maximize your efforts by promoting once you have more to show off.
These are all fairly simple, but they come up so frequently that they are worth considering, at least. The big change in my game-plan would have been to split Bloodlust#1 into two regular sized, cheaper priced novels and release the second six months later. This would give me a great increase in exposure and take some of the pressure off for Bloodlust #2…
Mind you the cynical part of me wonders if, armed with this knowledge I might have run out and written a book about a wizard-assassin who works for a cabal of dragons, from the shadows, of course 
