An Exercise in Reader Hunting

By Gamal Hennessy

At this point in my independent publishing career, I feel my ability to write is stronger than my ability to market. While this combination gives me the right skill set to be a starving artist, I’d like to find ways to increase my ability to reach my target audience and not die of hunger. I’m planning a major overhaul of my commercial strategy in January and increased exposure is a fundamental part of the program. As part of my long term plan, I just completed a small scale experiment to increase my pool of potential readers. I’d like to share it with you. Please feel free to use it or ignore it at your leisure.

The Goal

There is a school of thought in independent publishing (and sales in general) that people will buy books from authors they already know and like (See Write, Publish, Repeat). Not many people are familiar with my work right now, so my goal was to increase my exposure for a short period of time and get my writing into the hands of potential readers. Because this was a marketing exercise and not a sales exercise, I didn’t expect to generate any revenue. At the same time, I didn’t want to spend a ton of money either.

The Method

• I hired a marketing group on Fiverr.com that specializes in e-book marketing. They charged me $45 for what amounted to a mini blog tour.  
• I took my last novel (A Taste of Honey) and made it exclusive on Amazon’s KDP to set up a two day free offer that would take place a couple days before Halloween.
• I announced my free offer a week in advance on social media along with a free piece of horror flash fiction to get people’s attention.
• On the day of my free promo, I sent an email blast out to my mailing list of about 13,000 names.

The Results

• The marketing company produced 5-7 announcements and reviews for my book just before the free period. The announcements appeared on Examiner.com, Top Books Worth Reading and other blog sites.
• A handful of verified purchasers picked up the book before the free period and left reviews.
• There were more than 900 downloads of the book during the two day period, with a huge push in the first 16 hours and then a steady decline afterwards.
• A Taste of Honey broke into the top ten spy novels list on Amazon during the first day of the free period.
• Sales for the most part remained flat outside of a predictable dead cat bounce.

The Lesson

If my goal was to make a lot of money in a short period of time, then the experiment was a failure. I spent forty five dollars and didn’t make anything back. If my goal was to connect with more potential readers, then things didn’t turn out too bad. Nine hundred potential readers is a decent bite at the apple. In my experience, nine out of ten people who enjoy adult crime fiction liked my writing. Not everyone who downloaded my free book will read it, but even if only ten of those nine hundred people decide to read my book, maybe nine of them will like it too. When my next nine novels come out over the next five years, each one of those potential readers will be more prone to buy them because I’ll be an author they already like.

Some writers will mock me for losing 1,000 potential sales, or continuing to use KDP long after Amazon scuttled the algorithms that used to guarantee sales. Other writers might reject my use of a marketing company, comment that the process perverts the purity of the blog tour concept or otherwise smacks of dishonesty. Some people will be offended just for the sake of being offended. My goal isn’t to change those opinions. Every writer is entitled to their own perspective. My perspective is finding more people who might enjoy my work.

I plan to include this tactic in the overall strategy for releasing my next novel. Have you done something similar? What worked for you? What do you wish you could do over? Any comments are welcomed, even if I don’t answer them all.

Have fun.
Gamal

Just How Long is a "Novel" and How Much Should it Cost?

My article last week talked about word count as a tool of measuring progress before a story is released (see Why Word Count?).  I got quite a bit of feedback on that subject, but many of the responses focused on the relationship of word count to the price of a book after it is released. This raises an interesting question; what is the relationship between a story’s length and its cost? I have my own ideas on the subject, but as always, I'm interested in what you think as well.

The Length of a Story

The rise of independent publishing and e-books has given writers the ability to release work of any size no matter how large or small. By separating the story from a dead tree we can publish anything from a haiku to War and Peace. This has resulted in ambiguity about what is and isn't a “novel”. There are several definitions of story size, but my company works with the general idea that:

• A short story is 10,000 words or less
• A novella is between 10,000 and 50,000 words
• A novel is 50,000 words or more

There may be other narrative forms smaller or larger than these three, but I write in this range so that's what I'll discuss. The rest of this essay will have the same logic even if you consider it for works outside these three sizes.

The Price of a Story

Prior to e-book publishing, there wasn't a big market for individual retail sales of smaller works. The price per copy of a short story wasn't an issue because most of them weren't available for sale on their own. Now short stories and novella sales are common place. But how much should they cost?

I've heard from several authors and readers who reject the idea that one author's short story could cost the same as another author's novel. I've heard some author's advocate higher prices across the board to increase the perception of self-published work in general. I've experimented with different price points since 2012, but I plan to adopt the following price model as of February 2014:

• Short stories will be priced at $.99
• Novellas will be priced at $2.99
• Novels will be priced at $4.99 for the electronic version and $5.99 for the paperback

The release of my next novel A Taste of Honey will have a direct relationship to the price. The novel will initially be sold in parts as three e-book novellas (See One Novel, Four Books). The first novella will be free to increase interest and, the other two will be released at $2.99 each. The full novel will be available for $4.99 with a bonus short story. With this kind of release pattern readers can try the novel for free, buy the episodic versions if they want to read the story early or they can wait and save $1. I get multiple releases and potentially multiple revenue streams. Everybody wins.

The Connection between Length and Cost ?

The one troubling idea I've encountered in this discussion is that the longer work should cost more by default.  I understand that a reader might not want to pay $4.99 for a 5,000 words story, but length has little connection to quality. O'Henry, Nin and Poe produced literary classics that were less than 10,000 words. I wrote a 120,000 word abomination that shouldn't even be released. The idea of charging $5.99 for it is sinful. Readers want good stories (See Great Expectations) not necessarily long stories.

But charging based on objective quality is impossible. If the writer is also the publisher who sets the price, their inherent bias, positive or negative, will unduly alter the price. I don't think any author throws out a book that they believe is bad, but every book that comes out isn't good. Even "good" books aren't agreed upon by everyone. Quality itself is a subjective concept in reading, so it can't be used by itself to set price.

I've said before the right price of a book is the price that readers are willing to pay (See Selling Books Like a Drug Dealer). What do you think? Do books of a certain size need to have a specific price for you to buy them? Does the popularity of the writer or the genre play a role? Leave a comment and let me know.

Have fun.
Gamal

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Marketing the Independent Novel: Lighting a Spark or Spitting in the Wind?

Marketing is one of the necessary evils of independent publishing. As a writer, I'd prefer to simply spend my days reading, writing, drinking, loving and sleeping. But if I don't tell people about my book, how can I get them to read it, even if it's free? At the same time, if I just run around begging people to buy my book, the only thing I'll accomplish is pissing people off.

I don't have a marketing background, but I am willing to share the marketing I did for Smooth Operator and what I've learned in the process. Hopefully this information will help you reach Fifty Shades sales numbers, even though I'm really far from that right now.

Please note that these tactics came from three books on the subject of independent marketing as well as my own meandering experience in my previous jobs; (Sell Your Book Like Wildfire, Crush It With Kindle and Secret Amazon Hacks)

The Five Principles of Independent Book Marketing
Based on what I've read, people buy books based on five factors. In general:

1. They buy from authors they know and like
2. They buy books they've heard about (often several times)
3. They buy books that offer to do something for them
4. They buy books that other people buy
5. They buy books that are easy to buy

I tried to use these concepts to shape my marketing efforts. I broke the process down into five phases to maintain my sanity; social, preparation, announcement, pre-launch, launch and post launch.

Social is where I interact with the potential audience without talking about my book. The goal here is to establish yourself create rapport. I post essays about the business and craft of writing (like this one), book reviews and news articles about subjects related to my books. Hopefully this makes more people familiar with my name without a constant hard sell. At the same time, I've tried to create and increase friend’s lists on various sites and a mailing list that can be used to both keep in touch and spread the word about the book when the time comes. I did this stage for about nine months before the book launch.

In the Preparation phase, I try to set up the framework for the book marketing just prior to release. I found and sent ARC copies, determined the book's Amazon categories, and wrote the cover copy. I did all this about a month before the book launch.

The Announcement phase is two weeks before launch. This is when the cover image (See Judging a Book by its Cover) and promotion copy is posted (See the Smooth Operator Promo Post), the press release is written and mercenary mailing lists are recruited. The goal here is to let people know about the book, without pushing them to buy it. I imagine it works the same way as a movie trailer or a commercial for a new show.

In the Pre-Launch phase, I offer readers something in addition to the new book. I try to add incentives to the process, in the same way other companies offer extra features or gifts for people who buy first or take some other action. Since I didn't have money for an elaborate gift, I offered a prequel story called A Special Request to Smooth Operator to anyone willing to write a review.

When I was ready for the Launch phase, I created launch post on my blog (, sent out a blast on my email list and a social media blast to about 300,000 people (I didn't take bots, duplicates or dead profiles because I have no way to weed that out) during the five day promotional period that comes with Amazon's KDP program. My goal was to get as many downloads as possible in an attempt to raise my ranking on Amazon's sales list.

In the Post Launch phase, I try and let people know how other readers reacted to the book. Reviews from critics, sales figures and list announcements are all used to show that the book has merit in the marketplace. I also purchased three days of ad time on Facebook ads to target about 2.8 million readers in the US, UK, Canada and Mexico. I wanted to try this to see if FB advertising was more effective than a social media blast so I can compare the two methods for my next book.

The Results
Here is what all this marketing did for Smooth Operator during the first two weeks of release:

The Good News

• There were 900 downloads in the US and more than 300 internationally. And 200 actual sales
• Smooth Operator was reached #1 on the espionage new release list and #5 on the crime anthology list
• The book got seven independent reviews with an average rating of 4.6 stars (See What the Critics are Saying about Smooth Operator)
• Amazon used Smooth Operator as its featured new espionage release email early last week

The Bad News

• The sales of Smooth Operator dropped 95% after the promotional period was over
• Smooth Operator dropped off the espionage chart after the promo period and slipped down to #55 in the crime anthology list
• The overall response rate from all marketing efforts came in at about .003%, or three downloads for every 1,000 people targeted.

Lessons Learned
The obvious takeaway from this exercise is that I am not a marketing genius. There are probably several steps I could have taken to improve my sales. I’m just not sure what those steps are at this point. Maybe I needed to reach three million people instead of three hundred thousand. Maybe I needed a Champion to lead people to Smooth Operator (See Champions, Tastemakers and True Fans). Maybe I shouldn't have squandered the Launch by offering the book for free. Maybe the long tail hasn't kicked in yet and I need to give it more time. I have seven novels planned after Smooth Operator. When it's time to market the new novel in January, I'll try to learn from this experience and create a better result.

What marketing tactics did you use? Were your results better, worse or the same? Leave a comment and let me know.

Have fun.
Gamal

Judging a Book by Its Cover: The Mystery of Cover Design

I was very ambivalent about getting a cover for my new book. I know the cover has nothing to do with the quality of the writing, but I also know that a bad cover is a one way ticket to a very bad first impression. I wanted a cover that I would be proud of when I saw it on my shelf, but I couldn't afford to pay a small fortune for professional graphic design (See How Much Does It Cost to Publish a Book Anyway?). In the end, I tried two methods of creating a cover, but only one of them created the look I wanted at a price I could handle.

The Basics
The popular wisdom floating around about e-book cover design involve three concepts:

• The cover, especially the title and the author's name, should be clearly understandable as a thumbnail, so potential buyers can see it in a list of books on Amazon, Smashwords or GoodReads.
• The cover should catch the eye of the potential reader.
• The cover should give the reader some clue as to the subject matter and tone of the book.

I thought. 'OK, what's so hard about that?' Then I dove in head first.

 

Worth a Thousand Words
Smooth Operator is a novel of crime and espionage that includes a lot of drinking, violence and sexual themes. I wanted the cover image to suggest all those qualities as well as project an overall sense of cool. Based on these ideas, I set out to look for an image for my cover. 

istockphoto.com is my site of choice for pictures. It has a lot of amazing royalty-free images on its site for $20 or less, and you don't have to pay anything extra to use the image until you sell 499,999 copies. (That's not a problem, because if I ever sell that many copies, I will be happy to pay for an exclusive license, right after I buy my new condo.) It took a few hours and a couple cocktails worth of searching, but in the end I came up with this image.

The gun hints at the violence. The martini covers the alcohol consumption. The suit and the passport represent cool. There isn't an overly sexual about the image and it's not as dark as I would like, but until a publisher can pay for his own photo shoot, they have to go with the next best option. Armed with the image in medium sized resolution, I poured another drink and tried to make my cover.

Leave It to the Professionals
My best attempt to make a cover turned out like this:

Can it be seen as a thumbnail? Sure. Does it convey the right tone? I think so. The image handles most of that. Does it catch the eye of the potential reader? Probably not. If anything it might scream self-published novel, which is a death blow for some buyers (See Are Self-Published Books Inherently Inferior?). I wasn't completely happy with it, and other authors I respect stressed the need for a professional looking cover (special thanks to Lance Charnes for finally pushing me over the edge) so I set out in search of an affordable alternative.  

That's when I stumbled onto fiverr.com. It appears that the world of graphic design is going through economic competition that is just as bad, if not worse than independent publishing. That is a win for independent publishers because artists that once might have charged hundreds of dollars to design a cover are now doing gigs for $5 per cover. It's a little more for a paperback cover or quick delivery, but no cover is more than $30-$40.

I chose Angie, one of the top rated designers, submitted my payment (you have to pay first, but it's only $5) and my request along with the mock up I did. The cover at the top of this essay is what I got back:

Is this better?  That is a subjective question based on your aesthetics. Does it scream self-published? I don't think so. Considering what I paid for it, I think it is money well spent. Of course, I can't exactly articulate why the second cover is better, but then I'm not a graphic designer. I can say that I plan to use this artist for A Taste of Honey and the three other novels I have planned between now and 2016. At this point, I feel the cover design is the second most successful marketing project I've done so far.

So what process do you use to design your covers? Do you think this process makes sense for what you're trying to do? Let me know in the comments and as always. ..

Have fun.
Gamal

Just How Much Does It Cost to Publish a Book Anyway?

One of the growing clichés in independent publishing is that getting a book to market is cheap and easy. The reality can often be quite different, although it is certainly cheaper to go out on your own than it was five or ten years ago. The problem is I haven't seen many stories that define exactly what "cheap" means. Many of the comments on my last essay (See How to Find an Editor Without Going Insane) revolved around the cost of my editor. Since there might be a shortage of independent publishing economics out there, it makes sense for me to expand my costs beyond editing to the entire publishing process for my upcoming book Smooth Operator.

Disclaimer: Prices may vary. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Prices do not include tag, title or taxes. Check with your local dealer for details.

The Elements of Book Publishing
When I was in house counsel for an anime and manga company, the price we paid to sell comics and video (what real business people refer to as the cost of goods sold) were divided into five parts; acquisitions, production, advertising, sales and finance. I decided to break my costs down the same way.

Acquisition in this context means the creation of the manuscript. I set this cost at $0, even though there is a significant number of man hours put into the process (See Building the Better Novel series of posts). In addition there is an associated opportunity cost for lost wages that I could have made doing something else. I'm not smart enough to figure what that cost is, so I set it at zero to keep things simple.

Production has four costs:

• Editing: $1,200 from Create Space (See How to Find an Editor). Other editors charged per word or per page for a 75,000 word manuscript and most of the prices were in this range.
• Cover Design: $10 I do my cover design in house for the most part (because it's cheaper and kind of fun to do), but I get royalty free images from istockphoto.com and $10 covers the licensing cost of a decent sized image.
• Formatting: $40 from a program I called Jutoh that can create e-books in most major formats. Because I plan to use this program for all my books, I could amortize the cost across all titles, but for the sake of this exercise, I'll count the entire cost here.
• Printing: $250 Create Space offers printing on demand, but there is an initial set up fee for this service (Note: if you only release an e-book, this cost is zero. I'm only adding it in because vanity compels me to put my books on my shelf.)

Production Subtotal: $1,490

Advertising has two costs: 

• Online Advertising: $50. This will be split between Google and FB ads for a week after the launch of my book to specific demographic groups that are interested in my genre (See the Secret Struggle for the Magic It)
• Press Release: $60 through pr.com on the day the book launches. Again this will be a targeted release that will improve the SEO of the book as well as notify the relevant journalists and bloggers.

Advertising Subtotal: $110

Sales: $0 When people say independent publishing is cheap, this is what they mean. I'm planning to use Kindle Direct Press for at least one cycle, but even if you use Smashwords, Kobo or Nook, there are no upfront costs for registration, distribution, shipping, storage, returns, or all the other little costs that publishers normally deal with. Of course, online book outlets take a significant percentage the revenue from each sale, but everybody has to eat somehow.

Finance: $0 I have a separate account for my publishing company and there are fees associated with maintaining that, but I don't factor that in here because I'd be paying those fees either way and this is complicated enough already.

Total Cost to publish Smooth Operator: $1,600

Of course, each of these costs could be boiled down to almost zero or expanded to tens of thousands of dollars depending on the writer. The key is to find a cost that fits within your budget and helps you create the best book possible.

Profit, Loss and Breakeven
Once I know how much my book costs, I can figure out how many books I need to sell for it to be financially successful. A book breaks even when the number of books sold equals the cost of making the book. When I was at Marvel, they had a complicated spreadsheet (called a P&L or Profit and Loss statement) that laid this out in great detail. My method is similar, but not as fancy because again, my brain capacity is limited.

The formula is simple: Breakeven number of books = Revenue per book/ $1,600

If my book sells for $2.99 and my share of each Amazon sale is 70%, I make about $2 per book. If that's true, then I need to sell 800 books to breakeven. Every book sold after that is pure profit that I can horde in my basement and swim around in like Scrooge McDuck from Duck Tales. It also follows that the more I can reduce my costs the fewer books I need to sell to break even. A higher per book price also reduces that number, but you don't want to set the price so high that readers won't take a chance on you.

Business vs. Pleasure
Now, I don't have a basement. And I won't be swimming in a pool of money from the sale of Smooth Operator. In fact, the chances that the book will breakeven are quite small. But that's OK. By definition, independent publishing is not a cash cow. If I just wanted to make money, I'd invest in the defense industry or start a meth lab. There are many other reasons to publish besides money (See The Other Benefits of Independent Publishing), but that doesn't mean the profits and losses don't matter. Understanding the financial aspects of independent publishing are just as useful as learning to build web pages or understand social media. Publishing can become a vehicle for broad types of learning, even if you can't make a swimming pool out of the profits.

As always, please let me know what you think of my random rambling.

Have fun.
Gamal

The Future of Independent Publishing

What will the world of independent publishing look like in 2018?

Fellow author Emily McDaid asked me to look into my crystal ball and come up with an answer to this complex question.

Writers love to speculate, so instead of one answer, I came up with eleven.

If you want a look at the future, click here.

Have fun.

Gamal

Should E-books Be Free (and have ads in them?)

I’ve got a lot of responses from last week’s article on using free books now to attract fans that will pay for books later. I started thinking more about the concept after the post and realized that in a lot of ways mediums like TV, radio and apps already have a model that makes money while giving the product away for free; ad supported content. Maybe this concept can work for e-books as well.

As a reader and an author, what is your position on ads in e-books? Do you think the business model of free books supported by ads is a viable? I know Amazon and Microsoft have explored this option on a corporate level, but do any of you have experience doing it on the self-published level?

Also, does anyone have any companies or advertising networks they could recommend if someone did want to explore the e-book advertising option?

Thanks in advance.

Gamal