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Post by laura on Jan 18, 2011 12:41:24 GMT -5
I love reading all these stories from people who are self-publishing and doing well. Some for the first time as well. I'm not too daunted about having to build my own fan-base - even in traditional publishing, it's something you have to do largely on your own unless you're one of their top picks for the year. I like social media anyway, so I think I'll probably be good at my own marketing. My hubby worked in advertising as well, so he can help me put together some viral ideas  The price points are something I'm worried about though, but then, with e-publishing, it seems very easy to change the price if what you've started at isn't working out. My biggest block right now (or well, in a year or two) is that I haven't seen any e-book publishers that will allow setting a price point between 99 cents and nothing. I wanted to price my chapters somewhere in the 25-50 cent range - 99 cents is too high (considering that would mean about $34 for the whole book), but I don't want to give them away for free either. Last time I checked around anyway, it was either 99 cents or free. I could be wrong - or it could have changed by now. Or maybe I could petition the Smashwords guy to start letting us price at those points in between, lol! ETA: oh yes! POD publishing is going to be game-changing for indie publishers, I think. That is a rather new thing, because yes, before, the author would have to front all the money to have a full print run, and have to pray they all sell, lol! I'll definitely want some print copies of my work too, because I'm still a little old-fashioned like that. And really, most people are still reading in paper, even if they buy that book from Amazon. |
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dinuriel
Full Member
Torturing characters? Me? Nooo...
Posts: 374
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Post by dinuriel on Jan 18, 2011 13:20:08 GMT -5
Err... how does one go about self-promotion in the independent publishing world? I feel awkward enough advertising within the Sims community, that's me not asking for money there :S
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Post by thelunarfox on Jan 18, 2011 13:41:25 GMT -5
That's a good question Van, and I'm actually thinking about that now.
One girl asked book review blogs to review her books. That worked out really well for her. Others embed themselves in social media, facebook, twitter, forums, good reads, etc. They become a part of the community the way we're a part of the Sims community. So they never have to actually say, "buy my book," it's just in their profile and in their sigs.
And some just get the ball rolling and let it snowball. That's why having a lot of books or stories out helps. If someone manages to find you, they read something you have up, love it, they may decide to buy more. They'd tell others who might decide to buy. This takes a while, but it seems that this is the way most people end up going.
Really, it's still up in the air and the way people get word out is as varied as the authors. I say figure out your strengths and work on that.
Kiri, oh yeah, POD is an amazing gift. I want some hard copies of my stuff too! You've got Amazon's Create Space (I was surprised to see them actually pushing that when I visited to buy a song track from them the other day), Lulu, and some other new ones coming up. I haven't done further research into the quality of the printing, but that's next on my mental to do list when I get closer to that stage.
The problem with print books is exactly this. I don't know if they do this everywhere, but here traditional publishers print out a set number of books, send them out, and then when they don't sell, the books are sent back and the store receives a credit!
Isn't that the craziest thing? I'm not good with numbers, but let's think small. I worked at a gift shop. They sent us 3 books at a time for each of the top twenty spaces. Whatever didn't sell (usually about 75%) was sent back to be destroyed and hopefully recycled. Wasteful, and not a good way to make profit.
Laura, Smashwords won't let you price lower than $1? That's weird since they let you set the price as free if you want to. Maybe that has to do with fees?
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Post by infinitygoddess on Jan 18, 2011 17:47:57 GMT -5
The marketing aspect is definitely the thing that concerns me the most about self-publishing. When I first starting looking into it years ago I found Lulu and I still have the link in my favourites; but I'll be honest and say I haven't done a lot of thinking about it yet because I'm trying to focus on actually getting a first draft completed - if I don't have something to publish then how to publish becomes a bit of a moot point. I have a Lulu account and the issue I have with that one is how much of a bite they take out of your personal profits. You'd have to charge more for the book just so that you can have a decent cut. I don't recommend them for that reason. With CreateSpace, I can charge only $9.95 USD and still get enough out of it to make a decent profit. Provided that I sell enough books (and since I'm obviously not, I'm moving to maybe get a company like Dark Horse to publish my graphic novels into books as they can do all the marketing stuff for me; if not, I'll see about getting ISBN numbers once I scrape up enough money for marketing stuff and that like). |
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Post by laura on Jan 21, 2011 15:53:00 GMT -5
I wanted to pass along this link, from the Absolute Write forums on the stigma of self-publishing. I've read through the whole thing (6 pages, at the moment), and there are a lot of very smart and valid arguments on both sides. The stigma is the one thing I'm worried about with self-publishing. Someone in that thread mentioned "guilty by association", and it's very true. 90% of self-published books are truly complete garbage. Seriously, no joke. Just as 90% of a publisher's slush pile is truly garbage. The difference is that with self-publishing, the whole of that 90% are allowed to circulate their books, along with yours. And by taking the self-publishing route, if your work is actually truly good, you're automatically putting that stamp on it when it doesn't need to be there. One thing I've seen some indie-authors doing is attaching a sort of "fake" publishers name to their book. (Fake is probably too harsh a word, but I don't mean it in a harsh way.) Basically, like a sole proprietorship does in business, that person becomes their own small publishing company. Then, if the work is truly well edited and put together, the buyers really don't know that it's any different than another small or independent press. I'm not sure what legal steps there are to go through in doing that though. Another thing I'm coming to discover, is that if your work is truly and genuinely good - it really is easier just to get an agent. When your work is ready, getting an agent might be a little disheartening, but it's not hard. Self-publishing looks like a lot of really hard work, and I don't even just mean in the marketing. But typesetting? I was reading something, somewhere, about how a guy put in 1200 hours in typesetting his novel? That honestly sounds a bit much (20 x 60-hour weeks?), but I have no idea one way or the other. But an agent can place you with a small or independent press, if that's what you want, instead of one of the big scary ones. And the small press will likely give you more attention and a bigger cut of the profits as well. Actually, I've read that with all the self-publishing hype going on, even big publishers are being forced to give their authors a bigger cut, or else lose them to publishing on their own. The difference being that established authors can go out on their own, with their million already established fans. A new author is going to have a lot harder time at it. Point in all of this seems to be that indie-publishing, as an idea, seems really damn shiny. But then ideas are always more shiny than the reality, aren't they? I'd hate for any of us to put that stamp (= stigma) on our hard work without weighing all of our options. The spot I'm stuck in now, is that with my planned novel series, the way I want to do it, I imagine I could only do it myself. I'm hoping I'll get a chance to land myself an agent with my other novel first, to get some advice on how to proceed with that other project. ETA: another good discussion on self-publishing. So many good points on both sides and I don't even know where I stand, lol! I need to stop reading all of these and actually finish my work first, huh? |
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Post by thelunarfox on Jan 21, 2011 23:00:05 GMT -5
I need to stop reading all of these and actually finish my work first, huh? lol! Yes! I'm still waiting on that next chapter.  |
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Post by laura on Jan 21, 2011 23:31:16 GMT -5
I need to stop reading all of these and actually finish my work first, huh? lol! Yes! I'm still waiting on that next chapter. I think this is the one you need, lol! -->  |
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Post by thelunarfox on Jan 21, 2011 23:35:30 GMT -5
We can use them both.   The angrily waiting one is the one in charge. Doesn't it make it seem more serious?  |
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