SPA Girls Podcast – EP06 – Successful Self-Publishers’ Challenge
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
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
December 14, 2022
You girls are amazing! Thank you for keeping it real and inspiring us to continue on this journey. Been self-publishing in some shape or form since 2009 but it’a been a love hate journey. Started listening from episode 1 and just love you gals❤️
January 11, 2023
That’s so kind! Thanks Ananda!