SPA Girls Podcast – EP06 – Successful Self-Publishers’ Challenge
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Welcome to the sixth episode of the SPA Girls Podcast! This podcast was our second challenge episode where we all reported back with the information that we’d found on our self publishing heroes.
We all think it’s important to have someone you aspire to be like in any career, and self publishing is no different, so we set the challenge in episode one to research someone who is successfully managing a self publishing career.
We talk about Lindsay Buroker, Joanna Penn, Marie Force and Courtney Milan. They’re all women, and they’re all trail blazing in different areas of the self publishing world. We can all learn a huge amount from them and the way they’re running their self publishing businesses.
We also set the next challenge which was to research the genre that you are writing in, and report back on the different conventions in that genre. It’s important to know the rules of your genre – even if you’re planning to break them. (although that’s not always a good idea. Just saying)
Trudi – Lindsay Buroker
She’s a very successful Indie writer of sci-fi and fantasy who makes being in unusual/cross genres work for her. She’s also a very good writer. She put her first book up in 2010, and has been making a full time living as an author since 2012. Lindsay has published approximately 29 books plus novellas and short stories.
Some quotes from Lindsay:
“The first book will always be hard to sell. You have to hustle and hand-sell to the first 1000 people. At that point, the Amazon algorithms start to pick you up. Then if the readers have enjoyed the book and signed up for your list, the numbers will improve. You can build a career if you keep putting out stories that people enjoy and slowly build a fan base.”
“This is the secret. Put out great books and build your audience slowly and you can make it. Patience is required though! I mention my interview with Donald Maass a while back and he talked about an author needing 3-5 books before making a good living and the same is true for indies. Lindsay tries to write a book every six months but also puts out a shorter work in between to keep the income boosted. I congratulate Lindsay as there is now a fan-fic site for her books, twitter accounts started for her characters and a real community around them. I think this is a huge mark of success for any author!”
“I lacked the patience for the traditional route, and I’m so glad I did. I’ve written and published more than twenty novels in the time that some of my colleagues who chose trad publishing have had 2-3 released (if they got deals at all–many didn’t). I’ve been making a living since 2012 (I published my first novel in December of 2010), and my income has continued to go up as I’ve grown my readership and published more books.”
“If I were starting now, I’d do what I did with my pen name last year (which I started anonymously). I wrote the first three books — science fiction romances — in a series and published them back-to-back, making the first book free so I could attract readers right out of the gate. Even though SFR is probably the least popular romance niche out there, I was able to do quite well with that tactic. I spent about $100 advertising that free book on sites that would plug new novels without a lot of reviews and ended up covering all of my expenses for editing and cover art and then some in the first few months. I talked about it in a lot more detail in this blog post: http://www.lindsayburoker.com/amazon-kindle-sales/pen-name-update-at-10-weeks/
Shar – Joanna Penn
Joanna Penn is a self publishing industry commentator and educator, non-fiction and fiction author. She has a terrific podcast and blog for authors with a wealth of knowledge available on her website including a free download of 11 ways to make money as an author.
She started off writing non-fiction in 2008 and in 2011 moved into fiction. She writes action adventure thrillers.
Some of Joanna’s books:
Because of her extensive knowledge in the industry Joanna Penn has been interviewed multiple times and it’s good to have the UK perspective, as often we see success in this industry as USA dominated.
Quotes by Joanna Penn
“You can’t make a living from your writing if you’re not actually writing.
And while writing may seem easy to some and it has its fun moments, it’s actually really hard work!
I think it’s the best job in the world (for me) but it’s certainly not for everyone.”
Shar’s Favorite quote – “Define what you mean by success, as that will shape your career as an author.”
Cheryl – Marie Force
Marie started out like so many of us, writing for pleasure, until she had to deal with her mother’s passing. After that tragedy the desire to publish became her focus.
She was published originally by Carina – Harlequin, but when they didn’t want any of her other work she tested the waters of self-publishing in 2010 with True North. And by 2012 had published 12 books, including the Gansett Island series.
She is now a New York Times Best Seller and has featured 11 times since March 2013. Marie has sold over 4 million books from 40 contemporary romances. Waiting for Love entered the NYT list at number 6! Her Romantic Suspense Fatal series even has its own Facebook page for fans.
She writes across genres and is successful in each. She is both traditionally and self-published and writes the stories that her fans crave.
Marie is a true entrepreneur, writing, savvy marketing, running virtual workshops and book formatting fairies, she has made her passion her career in ways we might all try to emulate.
The bio on her website is much more detailed and we have merely touched the surface with Marie’s achievements.
Some of Marie’s Books:
A few Q & A’s with Marie Force from Kobowritinglife.com
What’s your favorite literary genre? Any guilty pleasures?
‘Romance, romance, romance! And it’s not even a “guilty” pleasure. It’s what I love to read and what I love to write.’
Are there any self-publishing tricks of the trade you’d like to share? What rules of craft or promotion do you live by?
My motto is that quality is job one—always. In the digital age, QUANTITY is job two. The more books you write and publish, the better you will do overall. A lot of people go into this looking for instant success, but for most of the authors I know it was a slow build over a number of years. Your single best promotional tool is your next book. That said, I’m a big fan of Facebook as the number one place to connect with readers in the digital age. I run more than twenty reader groups—one for each of my series and each of my books—where I’ve formed an online community around my books. The groups have been very beneficial to my efforts to remain connected to my readers.
Wendy – Courtney Milan
Originally traditionally published she self-published her first book in 2010 and since then her books have received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist. She’s on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists and has achieved many other accomplishments.
She writes both historical and contemporary, with the historicals being set predominately in the late 19th century.
I think one of the things I love most about her writing is that she deals with the real challenges woman of that period faced. Like the fact that woman had no control over the money or bodies and often the relationships they made.
She quit her day job a year and half after her first self published book. When questioned as to why she went down the self-publishing route she said she wanted more creative control over the entire process. She wanted imput into what she writes, and how it’s presented to the market, and a greater royalty share.
I was fortunate enough to meet her when she came to Auckland for the Romance Writers of NZ conference in 2014. Courtney told us she wasn’t a quick writer, therefore she had to find ways to keep her name in front of readers. She’s involved in boxed sets, changes the prices on her books, writes novellas, does foreign translations and print books, when she does not have a new release. She is also very active with her blog, which is well worth a read.
What’s the most important thing to keep in mind when self-publishing?
The most important thing to keep in mind is that you should be writing the best book you can. I know that sounds flippant, but trust me, that’s the No. 1 thing. You can recover from any other mistakes. Prices, covers and key words can be changed. You cannot recover from writing a terrible book. Your first goal should be to look at the reader experience.
What’s the best piece of advice you can give newbies looking to self-pub?
If you’re new to this business, you should be spending 95 percent of your time writing, and 5 percent taking care of the other business. The most important thing is to write. The publishing part of this is not that bad or that time-consuming. The writing has to come first.
– See more at: http://www.rtbookreviews.com/rt-daily-blog/self-pub-pro-qa-courtney-milan#sthash.CeeKCMCB.dpuf
Links
Joanna Pen
Lindsay Buroker
lindsayburoker/videos-podcasts
Marie Force
marieforce.com/virtual-workshops
Courtney Milan
SPA Girls Podcast – EP05 – What Is Genre?
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Welcome to the fifth episode of the SPA Girls Podcast! Phew. Who knew we’d make it this far?!
This episode is all about genre – what it is, why you should know about it, and what it means to you as a self publishing author.
There are certain conventions in every genre – especially in romance. No happily ever after? Then it’s not romance, and your readers are going to be disappointed! This is why it’s important to know your genre.
Although the lines have now blurred and some genre’s come and go with current trends, there really are so many genres out there, do your research and find what suits you.
A few romance subgenres:
Paranormal Romance
Historical Romance
Regency Romance
Contemporary Romance
Romantic Suspense
Romantic Comedy
Erotic Romance
Inspirational Romance
Young Adult romance
New Adult romance
How do I know what genre to write?
Look at your bookcase, what is the predominant genre there?
Get to know your genre options
Identify genre elements in your work, (what time period, is there romance in your book etc?)
Don’t reinvent the wheel. Genre fiction is hugely popular because readers have certain expectations from certain genres, so respect that. Check out the links below for some great information:
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_fiction
http://www.romancewiki.com/Romance_Sub-Genres
Amazon – Selecting Browse Categories
https://www.bisg.org/bisac-subject-codes
SPA Girls Podcast – EP04 – Facebook For Beginners
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In the fourth episode of the SPA Girls podcast we talk about why all romance authors should be on Facebook. Love it or hate it, the social media platform is the place to be for indie romance authors wanting to extend their platform and talk to new readers.
We talk about why you should be on there, the difference between a profile and a page, and get the hard word on the do’s and don’ts of Facebook from Shar.
Don’t miss this episode!
If you are going to do one thing online, it should be facebook. Why?
- The FB population is the one of the biggest countries in the world, and where the romance reader community congregate.
- It’s interactive.
- Dive in and give it a go.
First things first
There are two ways to use Facebook as a person (social – this is what Facebook was invented for) or as an author. Because of the rules around running a business from Facebook and you don’t choose to risk having your page closed down, then you should do the following:
- Set up a Personal Profile. This is where you have your friends, and people friend you.
- On this profile create an author page, and this is where people can like you.
Tip: Make sure you call the author page by the name you want associated with your books. Also, make it easy to understand.
Facebook Facts
- There is no limit on the number of pages you can create, so if you have a pen-name you can create a few.
- FB do not like you running a business from your personal page.
- A FB author page does not replace your author website. There is no argument, you MUST own your own website. FB own your author page.
- You can’t friend someone from your author page, you can like other pages only.
- FB does not show everything you post, only a percentage of people will get your posts.
- The more you interact with a person, the more likely you are to see their posts.
- Quality is much more important than quantity. 100 genuine likes from people on your author page is worth considerably more than 1000 likes with no interaction. Do not buy likes, grow your page organically.
- Follow authors who are successful on FB and see what they post and how they interact with their fans.
- Your author page is where you interact with your fans and other authors.
Do’s
- Join some FB author groups. Be part of a community. When you join a group you must do so through your personal profile.
- Be genuine.
- Interact positively on other authors FB pages.
- Post stuff that people want to see
- Accompany posts with a visual image, they work well, as does video.
- Post regularly.
- Be a good member of your community.
- Schedule posts. Spend time one day doing the weeks posts.
- Always reply to comments on your page. Build interaction.
- Share other people’s posts.
- Be professional.
Don’ts
- Don’t promote your books on other people’s sites.
- Don’t push your book constantly.
- Don’t private message people to read your book. Stay clear of controversial topics.
- Never buy likes. Never.
Easy steps to starting your FB Author page:
- Click drop down arrow on right hand side of personal page and select create page.
- Select Artist, Band or Public Figure
- Select Author, and enter your author name.
- You’ve created your page now, and can switch between your personal page and author page now by using the same drop down arrow on the right hand side of your personal page.
- Now you can go and spruce up your author page with banners, profile pictures and bios.
If you can think of a challenge, or something you need help with, then please ask us. There is no question too big or small
Links
https://www.facebook.com/business/
website – www.spagirlspodcast.com
Twitter- @spagirlspodcast
Facebook – www.facebook.com/SPAGirlsPodcast
SPA Girls Podcast – EP03 – Interview With Author Wendy Vella
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Thanks for joining us for the third episode of the SPA Girls podcast, the show where we talk you through the mysterious world of self publishing, and help you dip your toes into the dark unknown waters… Well, kind of. We just make it easy to understand, and tell it like it is!
This week we have an interview with one of our own – SPA Girl member Wendy Vella. Wendy has been self publishing since 2013, and she now has 14 titles and has been included in three box sets. She’s sold over 100,000 copies of her books, and at the beginning of this year took the plunge and went full time as an indie author.
We interview her on her road to success, where and when she writes, and what it took to make it all happen.
SHOW NOTES
Interview with Wendy Vella
Wendy had her first book, The Reluctant Countess, traditionally published by Random House in 2013, and went on to self publish her first book that same year. She is now in three boxed sets, has ten historical and two contemporary romances published. She has hit Amazon bestseller ranks with several books and has written several series. The Langley Sister, Regency Rakes, Lake Howling and Lords Of Night Street.
The writing journey
Wendy had been writing for many years before joining Romance Writers of New Zealand. She then started entering competitions, and that is where she honed her craft. The knowledge people offer in these kinds of organizations is invaluable, and she attributes a lot of her success to RWNZ, and the New Zealand writing community. Entering competitions and submitting her work to publishing houses taught her about rejection and deadlines. The feedback was invaluable and helped her sharpen her writing skills.
Being traditionally published was something Wendy believed she always wanted, but after her first book was picked up, the second didn’t follow. With the help of her writing friends, she then went into self publishing and has never looked back.
She is now a full-time writer and loving her job. She writes daily, and will publish seven books in 2015.
The best piece of advice she received was at her first conference. Anne Gracie, successful historical romance writer, told her to start at the beginning and finish at the end. Sounds easy, but until that moment she’d spent a lot of time going back over her work. Now she doesn’t stop until she writes ‘the end’. If something during that process makes her stop, she puts the problem in capital letter and continues.
Wendy’s writing timeline
- Book cover, critique, and editing organised
- First draft writing (rough and quick)
- Second draft. Layer the book. Adds emotional punch and work through internal conflicts and anything I put in capital letters in the first draft.
- Print off and read through – make changes where necessary
- Book is sent to be critiqued.
- Spend the week making changes, of which there are usually plenty.
- Send to beta readers.
- Make changes if necessary.
- Book goes to editor.
- Make changes.
- Get final read through done by a few people I have that are Grammer sticklers.
- Publish book and bite my nails to the quick with nerves that no one will read it.
“Writing THE END is very powerful.”
A bit of advice…
- Acknowledge your successes.
- Write regularly to strengthen the writing muscle.
- Don’t let it get complicated. Fix it in the second draft
- Writing THE END is very powerful.
Links
http://www.writersdigest.com/tip-of-the-day/make-time-to-write-10-tips-for-daily-writing
Romance Writing Organizations
http://www.romancewriters.co.nz/
http://www.romanceaustralia.com/p/1/Home
If you can think of a challenges or questions that you want us to research or help you with, then please ask us. There is no question too big or small
website – www.spagirlspodcast.com
Twitter- @spagirlspodcast
Facebook – www.facebook.com/SPAGirlsPodcast
SPA Girls Podcast – EP02 – Finding The Time To Write
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In the second episode of the SPA Girls podcast we talk about finding the time to write in your already busy schedule. You know you want to write, you think you’d be amazing at it, but you just can’t fit it into your life? We offer some ideas, suggestions and practical tips on how to make it happen.
Making Time To Write
We’re assuming that if you’re listening to this podcast, that you want to make a living out of your writing, so this episode is dedicated to how you can make time to write. We’ll tell you what we’ve tried and what works for us and hope that something will resonate with you.
When we first started writing, how did we find time?
For each of us there are different time constraints and family pressures. Trudi and Wendy are full time authors. Trudi has a pre-schooler and Wendy has just become a nana for the first time. Cheryl works part-time in a busy role and has a large family. Shar is self-employed working for other Authors and companies.
This is us now. When we began our friendship we were all working for other people in some capacity – Wendy full-time. Things that worked then may have changed or evolved, just as our writing’s evolved. (Hopefully improving. lol)
As we’ve said in the podcast, here are our tips for what helps us. On their own they aren’t miracles – but teamed with a desire to get the words down, and a determination to find something that fits your life style, it may feel that way. (See Shar’s pet inspiration*)
- Accountability by joining a group – critique, chapter, goodreads – anything that motivates you.
- Pomodoro technique (writing for 25 minute time slots).
- Fit your writing time around your life – sometimes you have to give up something to be able to have writing time (TV?).
- Make notes and then type them up when you have time – at the doctors, children’s practice, on a bus.
- Put the memo app on your phone and make verbal notes – for that ‘I don’t want to forget this’ moment.
- Develop a writing routine – not hard and fast – unless that works for you – but regular.
- Keep a note book with you – always!
How do you keep the creative juices flowing when you’re tired or unsure where to start?
- Make it enjoyable. If you’re stuck work on something else, or perhaps a new chapter.
- Set yourself goals you can achieve. Do you want a time based goal or a word count goal?
- Start at the beginning and finish at the end. If something stops you on the way, put it in capitals, then carry on until you reach the end.
- Before you finish your session leave something on the page as a reminder of where you’re heading in the story. It can be a word or a sentence – anything that helps to start you off the next time.
Summary
- Writing’s like learning to run a marathon, you need to learn to stretch the creative muscle, so write when you can, as often as you can.
- Not many people get a clean first draft, don’t get hung up on that.
- Life gets in the way – accept this and move on.
- Will puffy stickers work for you like they do Shar?*
- The flow doesn’t always come in the way you’d choose but, if you write something, who knows where it will lead? If you don’t write, then the answer is obviously nowhere.
- Don’t put too much pressure on yourself.
Links
Pomodoro Technique – http://pomodorotechnique.com/
Write Or Die – http://writeordie.com/
Website – www.spagirlspodcast.com –
Twitter – @spagirlspodcast –
Facebook – www.facebook.com/SPAGirlsPodcast
If you can think of a challenge or question that you want us to research or help you with, then please ask us. There is no question too big or small.
