I'm an established full-time author - willing to answer questions if you have them

[Michael]

Title pretty much says it all. I'm willing to answer questions on aspects of writing and publishing. To give you some perspective:

* I've written 29 books, published 10, and have 5 finished and working through their time in the publishing queue.

* I've been published by two of the big-five (8 books with Machete, 4 books with Penguin Random House)

*I've self-published 8 titles and sold more than 90,000 books

* My total English language sales are around 750,000. I've also had about 65 titles released into 12 languages.

* My books have appeared on more than 150 best-of or most-anticipated lists

* I've run two Kickstarters both very successful. The first one ended up 8th highest funded fiction project in the US, and the second was the 3rd highest funded, but when adding on "post Kickstarter" pre-order sales it hit #2.

*I've taught courses for Writer's Digest and have been a host of Hide and Create (a writer's podcast).

So, if you have questions, I'll try to do my best to answer them.

[Segilola]

Hiya,

Thanks for your post. How do you get sales? What marketing techniques did you use that you saw an actual ROI?

[Michael]

The things I concentrated most (in the early days) were.

* Bloggers
* Goodreads

Before you do anything, you need to get a fair number of people reading your book and posting reviews. That means talking to people one on one. When you find someone who likes a book similar to yours, reach out and ask if they would like to receive a complimentary review copy. Once you get about 20 reviews on your books then you can START marketing. Doing so before that is really useless. The Goodreads giveaway program works very well. I've had some giveaways where many thousands of people signed up to get a copy.

I'm not a big fan of "buy my book" postings on Twitter or Facebook. Best to find a community that you enjoy and be a great "participating member." Give generously of your time, be helpful to others (especially those asking for recommendations), but don't make a big deal about your own books. As time goes by and people start to know you as a person, they seek out your writing on their own accord. It's really best that they do.

Also, thank people who read your books and post reviews. They've taken the time to do something nice for you and it's polite to tell them it was appreciated.

For a lot more information, including some books that go into specific details, here is a thread I made long, long, ago. A lot of writer's I've pointed to it have found it very helpful.

[Segilola]

Thanks Michael, it makes a lot of sense

[Michael]

You are very welcome.

[sucre'd fiend]

Just wanna say thanks for taking the time to answer our questions!

[Michael]

It's my pleasure. I just wish more people would take me up on the offer ;-)

[Pamela, Mirror, mirror on the......]

What keeps you going? Its a struggle everytime to keep writing.

[Michael]

@Pamela, I have absolutely no trouble with motivation. It's my favorite pastime and I'm still amazed that people pay me to do what I love the most. Each morning I wake I can't wait to get tot he keyboard. I know not all writers are that way, but it is for me.