Lost at Sea:
A Brief Guide to Self-Publishing and
Marketing for the Beginning Writer
Yael Politis
Lost at Sea:
A Brief Guide to Self-Publishing and
Marketing for the Beginning Writer
Copyright 2015 Yael Politis
All Rights Reserved
Cover photo by Romel Pineda
This book may not be reproduced, copied, or
distributed for commercial purposes.
May 2015
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION 1
The really short version of the advice in this guide 1
Who Am I? 1
Marketing in General 3
Must-Do List 5
Blog or Website 6
Facebook 8
Facebook Advertising 8
Designing a Facebook Ad 9
Creating an Ad Campaign 11
Cover 12
Formatting 13
Formatting eBooks for Amazon KDP and Smashwords 13
Word Styles 13
My eBook Template 14
How it slightly differs from the Amazon guidelines: 14
The guiding principle is – Keep it simple! 14
Other formatting issues 15
Format a Paperback for CreateSpace 16
What are the differences between formatting a paperback and an eBook? 16
Mirror Margins 17
Book Sections 17
Page Numbers 17
Blank Pages 18
Odd and Even Pages 18
KDP and KDP Select 18
KDP Select 19
Why do authors sign up for KDP Select? 19
Uploading your eBook to Amazon 20
Categories 21
Keywords 23
Selecting Effective Keywords 23
Google Adwords 24
Use the Amazon Interface 24
Software for Keyword Research 25
Author Central 25
Adding Editorial Reviews 25
Editorial Reviews 26
Midwest Book Review 26
Kirkus Reviews 26
Publishers Weekly 27
ForeWord Reviews 27
Clarion Reviews 27
Reviews from Blogger/Reviewers 27
Where do you find book review blogs? 28
Review Request Manners 28
Sending Out Copies 29
Pricing 29
eMail List and Service 30
eMail Services 30
Advertising Newsletters 31
Your Ad 32
BookBub 32
Looking for a business opportunity? 33
Become an Amazon Associate (Affiliate) 33
Parting Thoughts 35
The End 36
Definitions 37
INTRODUCTION
The really short version of the advice in this guide
Assuming you write fiction, here’s what you should do:
· Write at least two really good books. Go ahead and publish the first, but don’t expect it to get much attention. That’s okay. It won’t go out of print. Publish one of your books only on Amazon and enroll it in KDP Select, so you can easily make it free for a few days.
· Have a good Amazon page, website, FB page, and Goodreads page.
· Spend weeks (literally) requesting reviews of your books from blogger/reviewers. For me this was the hardest part. (On my blog is a list of blogger/reviewers to whom you might wish to submit review requests.)
· Pay for one professional editorial review of each book.
· Once you have published more than one book and both/all of them have enough good reviews, make the book that is enrolled in KDP Select free for five days and pay for an ad in BookBub.
· Compile a list of the eMail addresses of your blog followers and (with their permission) any other readers who contact you.
· Six months later repeat the free promotion, place another ad with BookBub, and send an eMail announcing the promotion to everyone on the list you’ve been compiling.
· Another six months later take your book off KDP Select, publish it with Smashwords, and make it permanently free there. Price it at $.99 on KDP and write to KDP Support, asking them to price match. Once it goes free on Amazon send out another eMail, take out another ad for it on BookBub, and submit your book to every site you can find that lists perma-free books.
Who Am I?
Someone who collected rejection letters for a hobby. Then a small publisher noticed The Lonely Tree on a workshop and contacted me. So, wow, I was published. A dream come true, but dreams aren’t necessarily that great. Sales were . . . we won’t talk about that.
Meanwhile self-publishing was becoming more popular and subject to less condescension. So after finishing my next two novels (Books 1 and 2 of the Olivia series) I decided to venture down that path. I did like being able to say “my publisher,” but did not enjoy having no control over the cover, pricing, availability, marketing, etc.
I have since self-published Books 1-3 of the Olivia series. Stephan King is not sweating it, but I’ve achieved respectable sales. Initially all three eBooks were exclusive to KDP Select. Books 2 and 3 still are, but I recently opted out for Book 1 and published it with Smashwords. I also published paperbacks of all three with CreateSpace.
So the experience I can share with you is of publishing (and marketing) a series of full-length historical novels, mainly through KDP. How was the experience? I bet you’d like three answers to that:
· How hard was it?
· How much did it cost?
· What kind of results did I get?
Okay, first results. In total, for all three books of the series, I have sold (including borrows by Prime members) between 13-14,000 copies. In addition, close to 100,000 readers have downloaded free copies of Book 1 and hopefully many of them will one day get around to reading it and then purchase the other books. The books have received a healthy number of reviews (587, 282, and 137) and good ratings (4.4, 4.8, and 4.4) and during free promotions Book 1 managed to become the #1 Bestseller of free books in the Kindle store. All 3 books have been in the Top 100 bestsellers lists of paid books in their categories, as well as in the 100 Top Rated books in their categories.
What has it cost me so far? I have not included every cent I spent – only those that were worth spending.
Cover art / $225Cover Design / $420
Advertising / $860
Books / $360
Paid reviews / $150
Total / $2015
How hard was it? For Book 1 – hard. The process was tedious, frustrating, intimidating, and depressing. The amount of information and advice on the Internet is overwhelming. I really have to do that? And that? And that? When am I supposed to eat and sleep, let alone write another book? Eventually I took a deep breath, stepped back, and tried reconsidering all this advice through the eyes of a reader. Have I ever bought a book because the author gave an interview on someone’s blog? Because I saw a podcast of them reading from their novel? Because they have a book trailer on YouTube? The answer was a resounding No. So, happily, my conclusion was that, No, I don’t have to do all of that.
Unfortunately, every writer/publisher has to go through that difficult process once. There’s no way around it. No magic formula works for everyone. You have to find what works for you and your book. The good news is that for me it was a one time thing. The next two books were a breeze.
Marketing in General
How best to market your book depends on a number of factors:
What you enjoy doing. That may sound silly. Why would you bother making a book trailer – even if you enjoy doing it – if you don’t believe it will promote sales of your book? Well, it can’t hurt, so why not? Anything that gives you pleasure is energizing. Your positive state of mind is your best resource. Watching that really cool trailer you just uploaded will likely send you back to the computer to write. For the same reason, try to avoid doing things you hate. There is of course some tedium that can’t be avoided – for me that was begging for reviews – but try to keep it to truly necessary things. Your default response to doing things just because other authors do them should be No. But, hey, if you are outgoing and enjoy meeting new people, so arrange some speaking engagements, even if they’re just small gatherings in local coffee shops. Perhaps none of those coffee drinkers will buy your book, but you’re still likely to bring a lot of good things away from the experience.
The kind of book you are writing. Things such as genre, whether it is part of a series, or whether it’s the only book you currently have for sale will affect how you promote it. Does the plot revolve around a topic regarding which you could offer “extras” on your blog? Are there magazines about this topic that might be glad to print fillers from you? If so, things make sense for you that don’t for me.
Genres differ greatly. If you’re writing a romance, the good news is that the market for them is insatiable. The bad news is that everyone else in the world is writing romances. Even giving yours away is hard; you have to compete with a lot of other free titles. The same is true, in smaller numbers, of mysteries and thrillers.
I suspect genre may have been to my advantage. I have twice advertised Book 1 on BookBub, where there are a lot of subscribers who are fans of historical fiction. Luckily for me, relatively few historical fiction titles appear in their newsletter. I also had the advantage of writing a series, meaning I could make Book 1 free (first during temporary promotions, now permanently), leading to sales of Books 2 and 3. Even if your books aren’t a series, but you have more than one for sale, you can use a discount or free promotion of one to attract readers to the others. If you are publishing your first book, it’s a hard go. Your best marketing strategy is to lower expectations and put your time and energies into your next title.
Your skill set and budget. Unless cost is not an issue for you, your default response to spending money should be No Thanks. Don’t let go of a dollar until you are convinced it is reasonable to expect the expense to yield results. Look at every dime you spend as money you will never recoup. You may be pleasantly surprised, but the statistics are not encouraging. The vast majority of authors sell very few books. So DIY as much as possible. Barter services with other writers. But do spend what is necessary. If, like me, you can’t put together a professional looking cover, then shell out. If you can’t swap editing services with writer friends (like I did), then pay for it.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of throwing good money after bad, bombarding your frustration with dollars. After you subscribe to blogs for writers, join writers’ groups, etc. (as you should) you will begin to receive sales pitches for everything from books on self-publishing, software that will write your book for you, tutorials on how to use that software, “a feature spot” on a blog, contests you can enter (at a price), prizes you can be nominated for (at a price), and on and on.
I’m not saying that all these things are without value. You need to buy and read a few books and some of the other things would be nice to have. I recently watched a well done webinar that was selling a tutorial (probably equally well done) on how to use Facebook ads. I would be more than happy to take such a tutorial – if it didn’t cost over $1000. When the guy decides to put his advice in a book and sell it for $10, I’ll buy it.
Don’t buy anyone’s claim that their book, tutorial, webinar, online course, or whatever guarantees success. A lot of boring, badly-written books get published and flashy Facebook ads aren’t going to turn them into bestsellers. And it’s an unfortunate fact of life that some fascinating, well-written books will never appeal to more than a small audience. Marketing tricks might give a book a temporary sales spike, but if there isn’t a real, enthusiastic audience out there, it will quickly flatten out.
I’m not saying you don’t have to advertise to get exposure. Of course you do. I am saying you should adopt a healthy skepticism. My books have sold in the thousands, but I don’t believe clever marketing tips are going to turn them into NYT bestsellers. Only readers loving them and raving about them to their friends could do that.
So don’t sucker yourself into thinking, if I just do that, if I just spend this much more . . .
Also . . . Interaction with other self-published authors yields many rewards, but increased book sales are not among them. Don’t delude yourself about that.
Don’t feel you have to be active on every new social media site. A blog, Facebook, and a presence on Goodreads are quite enough time to spend on the Internet. If I ever choose to be active on Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or join Facebook and LinkedIn writing groups, it will be for my own enlightenment and enjoyment and not because I’m dumb enough to think it will sell books.
Don’t drive yourself nuts trying to create a “brand.” I admit – on this point I am a minority of one. All the experts say the opposite – creating a brand is a must. For me an author’s name is their brand. If I like one book they’ve written, I’ll look for another. If I didn’t like it, I’m unlikely to try another, no matter how cute their logo is.
Must-Do List
Blog or Website – You must have one. If someone Googles you and no author site comes up, you don’t really seem to exist.
Amazon page – Long before you publish, start working on your book descriptions and bio. Use authorcentral.amazon.com to polish your author page, once your book is published.
Facebook – Create businesses pages for your books.
Become a Goodreads author – I don’t do much there, but have had some wonderful experiences interacting with readers and reviewers. I do know my books need to be there.
Dedicated email – Set up a separate email account for interacting with readers. It’s the address you put on your website.
Email list – Start collecting the email addresses (and permission to contact them) of your readers. Use a free service, like MailChimp.