value of author website vs. social media and crowdfunding

[Quantum]

(cross-posted from SIA group and edited)

i question the value of a website/blog, vs. the other social media and crowdfunding sites. basically, your website is sitting out there all by its lonely self, whereas twitter, facebook, tumblr, instagram have millions of users to market to.

but if you do want to start up your own website, here are some of my thoughts.

i've been wondering whether to keep up my wordpress sites or not. one is personal and just for fun, the other one which i barely got going is for business. i do like tinkering w/it. & having my own domain is--i will admit--kind of a vanity thing. on the other hand, maintenance and setting up is somewhat of a hassle--esp. as of late, b/c wordpress plugins are prime targets for hackers. so patching happens maybe once a month. if you're on a wordpress provider (aka SaaS) like wordpress.com then they'll do it for you.

i'd make sure that you select a mobile (aka "responsive") theme and make sure that it looks good on a mobile device.

lastly--i don't know exactly how to do this since i haven't even gotten my first novel's book cover yet!--you want to drive readers to the point of sale, whether that be amazon, itunes, or smashwords. don't ever let your blog/content or whatever get in the way of that. maybe make sure you have some nice thumbnails and a 2- or 3- sentence hook to get readers to click that thumbnail and buy your book.

that query in the SIA group motivated me to do some price-checking.

godaddy.com = $15/yr for a domain thru wordpress.com. + $8/yr for privacy
wordpress.com = w/a your-name.wordpress.com URL

$18/yr for a domain + $8/yr for privacy, but $13/yr for your own domain from another party (for example, godaddy.com)

but if you go for the premium for $8.25/mo = $102/yr, then it includes your own domain.

https://wordpress.com/pricing/

other alternatives are to do one of these exclusively or any combination of them:

* facebook page
* amazon
* goodreads

another thought is a crowdfunding site. they already have an audience to draw from.

patreon.com -- they provide a blogging-type website for writers (and other artists). they take 5% cut and you pay for transaction fees (credit cards, paypal, and so on). you ask patrons for a monthly donation or a donation per work (typically short stories but it could be chapters of a novel). some SF&F magazines and authors (kameron hurley) are getting onto Patreon. i'm going to give that a go.

there's also indiegogo.com, kickstarter.com.

[Nik]

I think these are interesting and important issues and dilemmas that you raise here. Thanks for some research and data re costs.

I'm not a specialist of any kind, but I think the underlying concept should be that whatever you go with you need to feed and support with info, traffic, promotion, etc.
What I hear from people in the biz that many invest in promoting their internet sites on google, so it'll appear high on search results. When you become a big name per se and people search the net specifically for you, then there is no need to make promotion, but as long as your name is not a 'key word', you need to attract traffic somehow, be it for website, FB page or whatever.
Anything you run, you need to invest efforts (and maybe ads & other promotions) to make the most of it. Just having something: twitter, face, amazon, site doesn't do anything per se.

Re crowdfunding ('cf') I think Ian works on something in that direction.

I'm more of a fan for revenue-sharing model than for flat fee, so if that's what cf offers, for me it sounds worth a try

[Quantum]

Yes that's what CF's revenue model is: revenue-sharing. The company sets up and manages the infrastructure & you provide the content to attract a paying customer base.

So, Nik--you being the veteran business person--why is revenue-sharing preferable to paying up-front costs? $102/yr is a small investment. & if your novel all of a sudden goes viral, then you get all of the profit. Let's say you get 10,000 downloads in 1 yr on Amazon for $4/ download & you get 70% of that ( for simplicity let's say 1/3)= $30,000. $102/$30,000 = .34%

Now, compare that to patreon. Just to compare potential net revenue: $40,000- 40,000*5%*2% (transaction fees) = 37,200.

Ah, so if patreon has the same revenue-generating potential as Amazon + your own website--which is not true--then you can make more on patreon.

Kameron Hurley has 369 patrons for a total after the 5% and transaction fees is $1669/12-20k-word story (and about 2 per year), which comes to $4.52/patron or $0.104/word--which is not a bad rate as I've seen $.06 and $.08/word for short stories and flash fiction on SF&F online magazines. however, she can package them into a novella collection and resell it on amazon or sell them as reprints to magazines.

conclusion: use a mix of platforms to gain revenue for your content.

[Nik]

Alex G wrote: "Nik--you being the veteran business person..."

Maybe half a year ago, I would've thought that a veteran was certainly an overstatement, but now, who knows, maybe I am. What with the short life span of authors? -:) I'm in the biz for only 1.5 years, out of which actively promoting less than a year.

I think the chance of going viral is less than 0.1% in my case at least. I plan to make a summary of 10m, so I hope to share exactly why I think so. At this point I've spent in average 1k on each of my 2 books. So anything that saves me a further spending, but offers a contingent payment is an upside from my point of view... If the book goes viral than all is excellent, doesn't matter how much I share. I'd agree to the book pirates stealing my work, as long as they have a better outreach than me -:)

[Ian]

Nik mentioned me (I assume, unless there is another Ian) re crowd funding. I am involved in one such promotion that is as yet unresolved (supposed to be by this weekend) but it is not for books. This is for a special set of skin gels made from marine algae, and the project is moving from "cottage industry" towards eventually an IPO. In between, we need money for marketing, and while this has been going for some time on our own dollars, the time has come not seriously up the the stakes.

I am not doing this with my novels.

[Nik]

Wow, a fantasy author raises 41 mil on Kickstarter:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entert...
A mega success!

[Ian]

Amazing. I wonder why so many sent money? And what is he going to do with it all? My guess is this could be a near one-off success because there are so many other authors.

[Nik]

In this case, it's really: let's go, Brandon! :)

[Barbara]

Not an author, but It seems to me that there's no reason it's either/or. You can maintain a web site and engage in social media. The difference is that with social media, you reach out to the audience, with a web site, you wait for the audience to come to you.
Also, I attended a panel discussion once and the topic came up about author's starting their own web sites. Many said they would do a "bare bones" site to feature their books, upcoming engagements, etc, but that if they fell into the routine of regularly producing content for their web site, that would cut into their writing time.