Happy New Year: What I learned about publishing in 2014, and starting again in 2015

 

The end of the year is always a good time to review one’s life, a good time to evaluate the past and revise or adapt our plans for the future in light of experience. Here are some of the things I’ve learned about publishing in 2014š, and some decisions I’ve made for 2015 because of them.

Pricing & Sales

Offering books for free or 99c are not enough alone to make people buy your book, and for free books,  increased visibility once the book has returned to full price is not guaranteed, and likely not to happen unless your book has been selling daily for the prior month - it’s how the Amazon algorithms are set. Also some people think there is something inherently wrong with books priced at those levels, and if we’re to give books away for free, we need to be aware that we will get some poor reviews. We need to be sure to get something out of giving away books for free like:

Newsletter sign ups—this is worthwhile.
Readers for the rest of a series and other books—Most people don’t read books they pick up for free, and even those who do, them actually buying further books is not guaranteed. (Freebie readers may never pay for books) This is unlikely to happen anyway unless the giveaway is targeted specifically to the right group of people.
Reviews—don’t expect reviews in exchange for free books unless you give your books away specifically for the purpose of review.
Warning to self: Do not be seduced into free for novels. You have free short stories out there, and they are consistently in the top 50 in at least one category. At least 99c is a sale.


People want a story they will enjoy. If they think they will enjoy it, they’ll pay the price. We must let them know what the book will do for them. Connecting with readers through shared interests is vital. Think how can I serve people? Not, how can I sell my book? Try free fiction on the blog.

Reviews

Trying to get reviewers yourself by emailing reviewers is a waste of time. The results are too poor for the time you put into it.

Choosy Bookworm didn’t net much in the way of reviews for my $30, but I did get some small flow on sales for the rest of the series.
Netgalley listings will probably get to higher traffic sites than what you can get by emailing. I’ll see how it goes.
Blog tours probably aren’t worth the money—sales are small and never cover costs—and certainly aren’t worth the time required to write material. However they do get the book some exposure and we have no way of knowing their long term affect. Review only tours would be better. Use sparingly and choose the provider to suit the book.

Facebook

Facebook advertising does not sell books, at least not in numbers that make the payment worthwhile.

No more boosted posts.


Facebook page posts don’t get to enough people or get enough engagement to make the time spent posting worthwhile

Don’t post anything apart from what goes on automatically from the blog.
If they charge for anything that comes from my blog stop using it and direct blog posts to my own account instead.


I enjoy Facebook groups, so I should keep using them, but they can be a time sink.

No Facebook in the morning.



In general

Despite my efforts over the last couple of years, I don’t have big connections to young adults online and doing the kind of things I need to do to get one doesn’t interest me much—like Wattpad and joining teen forums.  However, I won’t let the series languish. Lethal Inheritance is doing well on Kindle Unlimited & the prequel gets steady downloads.
I do have an adult network and I enjoy engaging with them.
I’m not writing for YA anymore.
In some respects I’m starting again because though I have plenty of YA books out, I have only one adult book and a book of short stories.
I need to get more Prunella books out so that every reader that enjoys one has other ones available to buy immediately.

Focus for 2015

Finish and publish The Elements of Active Prose asap.
Write and publish two Prunella Smith books.
Publish one or more books by other authors for AIA Publishing – that’s one every 3 months!!!
Publish a book bundle with Lethal Inheritance in it.
Keep up my formal daily meditation practice.
Don’t let the Awesome Indies be a time sink. New directions must be run by others.

What will be your main focus next year?

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