Self-Publishing Archives - Page 6 of 12 - Writing As A Second Career

Experimenting With First In Series Free

On Friday, I recommended two resources for creating marketing plans for your novel and promised to share what I’ve done in in 2017 and how it’s worked out.

My main goal for advertising and marketing for 2017 was to bring new readers into my Awakening Series.

My main strategy was to list the first book in the series free.

I thought that might be worthwhile because the final book, The Illumination, released in May in ebook and paperback, and the audiobook edition became available this month, so at last the series is complete. (I published The Awakening in ebook format back in 2011 and waited far too long to write and publish the other three books.)

BookBub Featured Deal Results

BookBub is one of the only enewsletter featured deals that has paid for itself and generated significant additional income each time I’ve been able to get one.

(The BookBub Featured Deals are a single listing for a flat price in the enewsletter, as opposed to BookBub ads, which appear at the bottom of the newsletter and for which you pay per impression.)

I had a few features in previous years with The Awakening ebook editions at a sale price of $0.99 (regular price has varied from $2.99-$4.99). But BookBub turns down many applications for deals, and it seems to get harder to get one the longer a book is out.

I applied two or three times in late 2016 and was turned down until I switched The Awakening to free.

On March 2, 2017, The Awakening was ranked No. 16,366 of all Free Kindle books.

By mid-afternoon March 6, the day the feature ran, it was No. 11 on the overall list of Free Kindle books. By evening, it reached No.5.

What Does Free First In Series Mean For Sales And Royalties?

Obviously, there are no sales or royalties on a free ebook, only downloads.

There is one exception–sort of.

When there’s a spike in downloads, I usually sell additional audiobook editions as well as a paperback or two. Audible usually discounts the audio price, and the paperback royalty is low, so I estimate in 2017 that added up to not much more than $100-$200 over the course of the year for Book 1 in The Awakening Series.

The real boost came from the remaining books in the series.

In March, Books 2 and 3 were for sale and Book 4 available for pre-order on five ebook platforms (Amazon, Kobo, Nook, GooglePlay, and iTunes).

Kobo sales showed a dramatic difference. From January through November 2016, my total Kobo royalties were $293. But from January through November 2017, the royalties were $1,195.

On Nook, during the six months before the March 2017 BookBub feature my royalties for The Awakening Series were anywhere from $10-$50/month. For the six months from the BookBub feature on, it has averaged $103-$370.

On Amazon, royalties for the Kindle editions of The Awakening Series totaled about $3,400 for January through November, 2016. This year for the same time period, the total was $7,282.63.

Other Advertising

During both 2016 and 2017 I also advertised The Awakening and sometimes The Unbelievers in other enewsletters. (For limited times, I discounted The Unbelievers to $0.99 compared to a regular price of $3.99-$4.99.)

These other enewsletters also resulted in spikes in downloads.

In fact, just last Friday, The Awakening reached No. 1 on the Occult list for Kindle due to a Fussy Librarian listing.

A Few Caveats

The numbers above reflect a lot of variables.

First, The Illumination (Book 4) came out in May, 2017, and The Conflagration (Book 3) released in May, 2016.

So for the first four months of 2016, I only had two books out in my Awakening Series. If I could have had the whole series released in 2016, presumably those numbers would look a lot better.

Also, I updated all my covers in 2017. The news ones more clearly brand the series and better convey the type of book.

Finally, there’s no way to know what my royalties would be if I’d left The Awakening at $3.99 and run $0.99 sales periodically rather than leaving it free for the year.

I think it’s unlikely I would have gotten a BookBub Featured Deal, so I would not have had that big spike in March 2017. But I probably would have gotten $0.99 listings in other enewsletters, as most have accepted The Awakening every time I’ve applied over the years.

Also, readers are much more apt to read a book they paid for, even if they paid only $0.99 cents, than one they downloaded free. So while I’d have a smaller number of Book 1s on people’s ereaders, there might be a higher percentage who actually read it and bought the later books.

In the end, I feel it was worth making Book 1 free.

There were over 60,000 downloads, so despite that probably less than 10% of them resulted in actual reads of the book, that many people saw it, liked the cover, and are likely to remember it if they see it later.

That’s a type of reach and advertising that’s expensive to buy, and through a BookBub Featured Deal and other enewletters ads, my advertising dollars generated a net profit.

That being said, I’m considering putting The Awakening back at $3.99 in January and running some $0.99 sales to see how that goes for 2018. (I’ll talk about other reasons for that in a later post.)

Either way, I’ll let you know.

What’s your experience with free first in series? Please share in the comments.

Until Friday–

L.M. Lilly

Creating A Marketing Plan For Your Book

If you want to get your novel into the hands of readers, you need a marketing plan.

Even if you have a traditional publishing contract, unless you’re Stephen King or Mary Higgins Clark (in which case you’re probably not reading this article), only limited resources–or no resources–will be devoted to your particular book.

When I started self-publishing in 2011, I did an overall business plan. It included some marketing, but all of it quickly became out of date as the publishing industry changed.

Since then, I’ve been a bit haphazard, though I’ve had some success. I’ll share what I’ve done this year and the results on Sunday.

My December goals include creating marketing plans for my new Q.C. Davis Mystery Series (first two novels are in progress now), for The Awakening Series, and for my non-fiction writing books.

I looked at two resources to figure out what ought to go into the marketing plans, both of which I recommend.

Small Business Administration Plan

The first is the Small Business Administration marketing and sales page.

It provides a good overview of what should go into a marketing plan, including figuring out your target market, your competitive advantage, your budget, and more.

A few aspects may not be that relevant to your author business. For example, there’s a discussion of accepting checks, cash, or credit cards.

That might matter for in-person events, but most indie authors sell primarily online, in which case we’re getting paid by direct deposit from Kobo, Amazon, or one of the other ebook platforms. (Some indies are starting to sell direct from their sites now, though, which I plan to research and write about.) If you have a traditional publishing contract, your publisher will be paying you (I hope!).

Marketing Plan Template

I found an extremely helpful article on Forbes.com: Marketing Plan Template: Exactly What To Include. The author, Dave Lavinsky, includes within it a link a to template that’s for sale, but I found the article alone perfect as is.

Lavinsky does exactly what the title promises, explaining 15 steps for your marketing plan.

I found nearly every one well adapted to marketing novels. I used his 15 sections to start making notes for the Q.C. Davis plan yesterday. (When it’s finished, I’ll provide a link so you can download it for reference.)

Beginning notes on marketing plan for Q.C. Davis mysteries

The article is from 2013.

The only part I thought was somewhat dated was splitting out Section 8, Promotion Strategy, from Section 9, Online Marketing Strategy. Most of my promotion is done online, so at first it seemed to me the two would be duplicative.

As I wrote thoughts on each, though, I realized it might be good to separate these points out. There may be offline marketing and advertising opportunities these days that other authors and businesses are neglecting, which could make it less expensive to use those ways to get a book or series in front of potential readers.

Also, don’t let the fact that there are 15 sections discourage you from sketching out thoughts on each one. I did it in about 45 minutes.

While my notes include a lot of blanks and follow up items, doing that got me started on market research last night that I wouldn’t have otherwise done. (I found readers of two more authors to add to my target list — Tess Gerritsen and Jonathan Kellerman.)

Also, it brought home to me that I really do need to start planning now if I want to release in Spring 2017, as I hope to do.

Looks like it’ll be a busy December!

For quick reference, here again are links to the two marketing plan resources I found helpful:

Until Sunday, when I’ll talk about putting the first book in a series free as a marketing strategy—

L.M. Lilly

One Word And Your Writing Life

At a recent conference on business for authors, several panelists talked about figuring out the one word that gets across what you want from your business/writing life.

The word doesn’t need to be specifically about writing or business. Instead, it sums up what you want from life.

The idea is to ask yourself what will make you happy and what word expresses that and build your business around it.

One Word Matters

When I started my law firm, I never thought about choosing a word or exactly why I wanted to run my own firm.

I knew I wanted to work for myself, as that was one of the reasons I became a lawyer. I also wanted more control over my schedule and more time to write, but I didn’t specifically set out to create that. I more or less assumed it would happen when I became my own boss. (Anyone who worked for themselves probably could have told me that wouldn’t happen. Quite possibly someone did tell me and it didn’t sink in.)

Because of that, my firm grew in ways I didn’t expect. Other attorneys congratulated me on my success, and I was happy to have a lot of business.

But because I hadn’t figured out what type of life I wanted, I rapidly recreated exactly what I’d left–more work than I wanted and little time for the rest of my life.

I don’t want to do the same thing with my writing business. There are only so many career changes I want to make in my life.

That’s why the one word concept drew me it.

Examples Of One Words

Author Joanna (J.F.) Penn has said her word is Freedom.

When she set out to create her online business, she knew she wanted the freedom to live wherever she chose and travel wherever and whenever she wanted.

With Freedom as her word, she realized she needed a business that allowed her to work from anywhere, one she could run from her laptop. That word also told her what she didn’t want–a business that required separate physical space, lots of equipment, and on-site employees she’d need to manage.

The authors at Sterling & Stone, in contrast, seem to expand the size of their company constantly.

They are three authors co-authoring books, but they also employ multiple people, develop software and services for writers, and host a yearly conference. Their one word probably wasn’t Freedom, or if it was, it meant something different to them than to Joanna Penn.

As another example, if your word is Security, you probably don’t want to throw caution to the wind and quit your current position the first time you make a hundred or even a thousand dollars in a month from your writing.

If your word is Exploration, you might try playwriting, screenwriting, poetry writing, and novel writing all within a few years or maybe a few months. You also might write in multiple genres or explore other types of creative projects.

Choosing Your Word

Do any of these words express what you want most from life?

Joy
Recognition
Success
Fame
Peace
Connection
Freedom
Security
Excitement

Think about how you feel about these words (or others you come up with) and what they mean to you.

How might your choices be different depending on the word you choose?

My own word (I’m pretty sure) is Creativity.

For decades Security actually was most important to me, as I had a rough time in my late twenties when I was unable to work due to a repetitive stress injury and moved home with my parents.

After that, for a long time I felt driven to achieve as much financial success as possible for fear of hitting a serious stumbling block again. I always wrote on the side, but it was very hard for me to turn down better-paying work whenever it was offered.

Also, if I spent too much time on “non-productive” (meaning non-paying) activities, I worried that I ought to be focused on earning enough to pay off debts or fund my retirement.

Now, though, I’m happiest when I have time not only for my own writing, but to engage in the storytelling of others. I love to read books, see plays, watch movies, and watch television series that tell long form stories.

The more I do all of that, the happier I feel.

What Creativity means to me going forward is that each project or task I do needs to either (a) generate money while still allowing me a lot of time for creativity or (b) be something creative I enjoy for its own sake.

In my perfect world, every activity I do will fit both.

So what’s your word?

Until Friday–

L.M. Lilly

P.S. Choosing a single concept or focus can also help when setting goals.

The Worst Ways To Spend Money On Book Promotion

How do you know what promotional or book marketing services are worth the money?

This is a question I get often, both from people with limited funds and from those who would far rather spend money than time when it comes to marketing.

A lot of the calls and emails I receive from lawyers, doctors, and businesspeople who’ve written and/or published their first novels revolve around this issue. Many of them feel it’s better to spend their hours writing or earning money at their non-writing careers/professions and to pay an expert to handle marketing.

The problem is, marketing or promotion “experts” abound, as do services, but many provide little or no value.

That’s why this Friday I recommend you check out The Digital Reader article 8 Ways For Authors To Waste Their Money.

Top of the list is hiring a publicist, which can cost thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. If you or your book are not already well-known, there’s not much a publicist can do but charge you high rates for services you could buy yourself at a fraction of the cost.

Another money pit is a service that promises to get your book on bestseller lists.

All the lists frown on, discourage, and expose attempts to game the system by buying your own book, which is what many of these services basically do. Also, nice as it might be to get that bestseller tag, if you are on your first book, the odds that paying to call it a bestseller will ever generate enough sales to make it worth the price tag are, in my opinion, slim to none.

The only point I disagree with the article about, or at least would qualify, is the dismissal of email blast services.

I agree that there is no value to emailing around a press release about your book. I also agree that paying for tweets or other social media posts rarely results in sales or enough name recognition to be worthwhile.

There are email newsletters, though, to which readers subscribe who are looking for free and discount ebooks. (The Holy Grail of these right now is BookBub, but if you can’t get in there, I’ve found others such as Just Kindle and Book Barbarian (for fantasy) worth buying.)

These e-newsletters can be good ways to reach new readers. It’s most cost-effective to pay for slots when you have at least 3 books so there’s a chance of sales in addition to your discounted (or free) ebook.

Don’t forget to check out the comments on the article, as they contain more useful information.

Until Sunday–

L.M. Lilly

Money, Writing, & Becoming Unshakeable

On the surface, making the most of the money you earn and choosing good investment strategies seems to have little to do with the creative side of writing. But I believe they are connected.

When I was worried about money all the time, I still wrote, but it was like running with a fifty pound weight on my back.

Worrying about money takes a lot of mental energy.

Also, not having enough money means spending more time on pursuits that will earn you money more quickly or more predictably than will selling your writing.

If I were saving for a down payment for a house, for example, I’d be more likely to accept more legal work, as right now it pays me more by the hour than writing does, and it pays more quickly.

In the long run, though, that’s not a good financial strategy.

Once I sell an hour of my time, it’s gone. If I spend many hours writing a novel, I may not get paid anything for it until six months from now, but it could potentially earn money for 70 years after my death.

For these reasons, this Friday I recommend Unshakeable by Tony Robbins.

A couple Sundays ago I mentioned I’m a Tony Robbins fan because of the distinctions he makes about how we motivate ourselves to achieve what we want. In Unshakeable he turns his focus to money and finance.

After interviewing fifty great financial minds, Robbins pulls out the key knowledge and strategies you need to move toward a life of financial freedom.

If you are unfamiliar with the world of finance, this book is a great step-by-step practical guide that walks you through what you need to know and how to go about getting where you want to be.

If you’re already pretty knowledgeable about investments and feel you understand the financial world, it is still well worth reading. While much of what Robbins covered was familiar to me, there were points that I hadn’t understood when I’d read them elsewhere, or that hadn’t applied to me when I first started learning about how to handle money that now hit home.

The book is available in multiple formats.

If you’re short on time or your To-Read list is already too long, try listening to it instead. That’s what I did, and I found it fairly easy to pick up the thread on each topic even if I went a long time between listening.

Until Sunday–

L.M. Lilly

6 Things You Can Do With Short Stories

When I read fiction, it’s almost always novels, which is probably why that’s what I tend to write.

But in the early 2000s I attended a writer’s retreat where the instructor insisted we write a 3-5 page short story each night and exchange them the next day.

Something about the page limit worked for me. Those stories were the first fiction I got published. One was included in the first episode of an Internet radio show, Parade of Phantoms, where the producer read horror stories. (These days it would probably be a podcast.)

Since then, I’ve only written short stories here and there, but I may change that.

At the recent Master Business Workshop in Oregon, there was an entire panel discussion on what you can do with short stories to enhance your fiction writing career.

Here are the suggestions I thought most helpful:

Post regularly on your website

One author posts one short story per month on his website.

Having fresh content each month keeps the website ranking higher. It also gives his fans a reason to return to the site. Finally, it draws new readers to the site who may then check out his other work.

As he’s posting the story, he also puts it for sale on Amazon for $2.99. He said that some readers start the story on the site but then buy it because they’d rather read on their Kindles than on screen.

Tie it to your novels

If you write a series, a short story about one of the series characters can be a tie in to the novels. It’s a good entry point for new readers. It also is a sort of reward for fans who want more about those characters and don’t want to wait for the next novel.

You can publish these short stories yourself in ebook format or you can submit them to magazines and perhaps draw in those readers.

Give it to Patreon supporters or email list subscribers

A short story that’s exclusive to people who donate to you on Patreon (if you’re not familiar with Patreon, here’s how it works) or who subscribe to your email list rewards them for their support and encourages others to sign up.

Another option is to offer it first to your supporters for a week or month and then offer it for sale as an ebook or submit it to magazines.

Submit it to an anthology or include it in a bundle

Publishers put together anthologies on certain themes. Some look for new stories, so you can submit to those. Others look for already published stories, so it’s a way you can earn money or publicity a second time if you’ve already had the story published.

Many indie authors put together anthologies, also called bundles. You can look for another author who is doing so or you can take initiative and create a bundle yourself.

(Bundle Rabbit is one platform that allows authors to create bundles of novels or short stories.)

Option It For Film Or Other Formats

Many movies have been based on short stories, such as Breakfast At Tiffany’s (short story by Truman Capote), Total Recall (We Can Remember It for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick) and, more recently, Arrival (Story Of Your Life by Ted Chiang).

Short stories also can be adapted into plays or short films.

You generally need your story to be selling well (or at least for your work as a whole to be well known) before anyone who can pay you for an option will be interested.

But even if you get paid little, any adaptation can be helpful for publicity and can be a learning experience.

A few years back someone I knew in high school was making his first short film and asked if I had any short stories that might work. I sent him a few, and he made a film, which he called Willis Tower, of my short story The Tower Formerly Known As Sears.

I learned a lot from his interpretation and also from seeing what the actors did with my characters. While the film didn’t get distributed, a couple newspaper articles wrote about it when he submitted it to film festivals. It’s also a nice credit for my author bio.

Submit it to traditional magazine markets

I put this last because it’s the option most of us are familiar with. At the conference, though, hosts Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch made some points about this option that are worth repeating.

Start with the big markets that pay well, as it’s the best publicity you’ll ever get for your work
As you wait for a response, and it may be a long wait, you are free to submit another story to that same publication
If the story isn’t rejected, keep trying additional markets
If you do sell it to a magazine, you typically are only selling the right to print it first, so you can then use the story in any or all of the other ways listed above

Have you written short stories? Feel free to share your experience in the comments.

Until Friday–

L.M. Lilly

Rockets, Romance, And Marketing Cross-Genre Books

One reason a lot of writers love publishing their own work is that it need not fit nearly into one box.

My Awakening Series, for example, fits into Horror as that category existed when I was growing up. Back then it included what I think of as “quiet horror”–like Stephen King’s The Dead Zone (my favorite King novel) or The Omen. (In case you’re trying to figure out how old I am based on that, I’ll tell you–51.)

Yes, The Omen had some scenes considered shocking at the time and a little bit of gore, but it mainly relied on psychological and supernatural suspense.

These days, some publishers wouldn’t consider that to be horror. As an independently-published writer, though, I can choose to write books like it, and I can market to readers who love what I love regardless what it’s called.

Some writers also are drawn to indie publishing because it allows them to cross genres in the same book.

Indies are free, for example, to include romance in science fiction or add a supernatural element to crime fiction (such as J. F. Penn does in her London psychic/London crime thriller series, which is my favorite of hers).

Traditional publishing tended to frown on these types of books, finding them hard to market.

In some ways, though, things haven’t changed. Indie or traditional, it can be a challenge to market books that don’t fit neatly into a genre category.

That’s why this week I’m recommending an episode of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast that specifically addresses marketing a book that falls in more than one genre.

In A Successful Cross-Genre Launch with Chris Fox, author Chris Fox is interviewed about creating covers that hint at more than one genre but aren’t overbusy, how to use Amazon Ads to test tag lines pre-launch, and reader reactions to cross-genre books, plus many other points to help writers market their work.

In keeping with the theme, I recommend this podcast episode whether you write science fiction and/or fantasy or not because the tips and information are relevant to everyone.

SFFMP 156: Finding Success with a Cross-Genre Book Launch with Chris Fox

Until Sunday-

L. M. Lilly

Meeting With Yourself Can Help Your Writing

A few Sundays ago I wrote about the importance of play to your writing.

This Sunday I’m suggesting you add 10-20 minutes of structured time to your schedule each week. Why? It can save you time by freeing more minutes and hours to write, do whatever else you need to do, and relax.

Cool sculpture in Chicago’s main Chase Bank branch where I sometimes meet with myself. It has a lovely sitting area.

The 10-20 minutes is for meeting with yourself to plan your week and intentionally choose what tasks to do to reach your goals.

I wish I had done this in my solo law practice. Having come from a large firm environment that was very structured, I used to joke when I was my own boss about meetings.

I’d say I met with my management committee, meaning me, and approved the number of hours I’d worked or the amount of business I’d brought in or my budget expenditures.

The joke was on me.

Had I had a few meetings with myself, I might have realized I was recreating in my solo law practice what I’d left Big Law to avoid.

I was working long hours, including every weekend, and always felt I had too little time to write or do anything outside of work.

So how does this apply to writing?

Having learned from my mistakes, late every Friday afternoon, I now leave my home office and go to a cafe for tea or a restaurant or bar for a glass of wine.

I look at my calendar and To Do lists, schedule my writing hours, and schedule the hours I’ll devote to business.

I also note what tasks I’ll do.

For writing, that means which specific project I’ll focus on. For business, it means choosing whether I’ll be catching up bookkeeping, scheduling promotions, updating my author Facebook page, etc. Depending how busy I am (and on how much I’m enjoying the wine), this takes about 10-20 minutes.

Holding these meetings saves time.

That’s because rather than spending 5 minutes deciding what to work on every time I sit down to write or devote time to my business, I made these decisions once.

It also saves time by keeping me on track with what I want to accomplish. When I’m choosing tasks, I ask myself if the task is necessary and whether it’ll move me toward one of my main goals. If not, I cross if off the list.

When I’m deciding what writing project to start or finish, I ask how it fits with my overall plan. If it doesn’t, I can change course before devoting hours and hours.

Big picture, meeting with yourself ensures you won’t spend time on unnecessary tasks that don’t actually accomplish anything. (Such as checking your sales dashboard on Amazon five times a day, which feels business related, but doesn’t move you toward any goal. Not that I have ever done that.)

It also keeps you from staring at a blank page, uncertain what to write next.

(This used to be my favorite Starbucks to work at, but now it’s all high top tables, which I don’t like. Sigh.)

What about spontaneity?

You can have that even if you meet and plan.

One way is to list an alternate task if you really really are dragging your feet on something. Rather than fight how you feel, you can switch to something else. (And next time you meet, ask if you really need or want to do that task you avoided.)

Also, especially if you’re working at another career or profession, you can build in flexibility.

Your plan for the week can be your best case scenario. If you have a week that’s reasonable at your other career, you’ll spend all the time you scheduled on your writing.

Favorite outdoor meeting spot at a different Starbucks.

If it’s busier than usual, you’ll spend less time on your writing, but it’ll probably still be more than if you had no plan at all.

What’s really nice is as you get better at scheduling, once you accomplish what you set out to do for the week, you are done. It’s time to relax and watch that movie, go out to dinner, or just do nothing without that nagging voice in your head telling you that you “should” be writing.

Sunday is a great day to assess the coming week, so why not try this out today?

Until Friday–

L.M. Lilly

Getting The Most From A Long Writers Conference

Today I’m headed home from an 8-day writers conference.

At a conference, unlike a retreat, it’s not about taking time away from your day-to-day life to write as much as you can or to hone in on a particular creative project.

Instead, it’s about taking in information and meeting other writers. Participants usually attend lectures and panel discussions led by experts.

At the one I just finished, we attended talks or presentations from 11-1, 3-6, and 8-9:30. Five out of 8 days included 2-hour lunches at tables of 8 or 9 people led by one of the panelists. Each night there were free form late night discussions.

Three things to remember to get the most out of a busy conference (and leave without getting sick or losing your mind):

(1) Know yourself

(2) Set your goals

(3) Get outside

Know Yourself

Faced with a conference full of experts as well as tons of other people with whom you share a love of writing, it’s tempting to spend every waking hour learning or interacting with others.

This is why you need to know yourself.

Nightime view of beach – not that’s not a snake.

If you’re a high energy person who likes to be in motion from the instant you wake up until the second your head hits the pillow, you will likely be fine attending each event and chatting with people on every break. You may want to arrange more times to interact during unscheduled hours or to visit local stores or attractions.

On the other hand, if you’re someone who prefers to spend some time alone each day or needs quiet to recharge and take in what you’ve learned, pick a few sessions or events you wouldn’t be too disappointed to miss if you find you need to step away.

No matter where you fall on that spectrum, leave some downtime. Otherwise, you’ll have trouble focusing during the day or sleeping at night.

It’s also good to pick up snacks (or groceries if where you’re staying has a kitchenette). That way if you need some quiet but don’t want to miss any formal sessions, you can eat a meal or two in your room.

At this conference, I attended every talk or panel and each lunch.

But I am not a night person, which was exaggerated by being in a different time zone. So I skipped the late night discussions, though I did meet once for breakfast with other attendees.

Set Goals

Learning every fact and figure, trying every recommended strategy, and shaking every hand is rarely effective. Too much information can be overwhelming. Also, after you’ve met the tenth or twelfth person, it’s hard to remember who was whom.

Instead, before the conference, pick 2-5 people you’d really like to meet and have a conversation with. That’s often more valuable than coming home with a long list of names.

(The photo above is not my favorite of me, but Joanna Penn is one of the people I really wanted to chat with. I love her podcast The Creative Penn, and I also love her fiction under J.F. Penn, especially her London Crime Thrillers, which include a hint of the supernatural.)

Similarly, while I take notes on each session, I figure out in advance what I’m most hoping to learn. It’s not that I don’t pay attention to the rest, but the 2 or 3 main areas help me organize my thoughts and my notes.

This time I wanted to figure out my 2-3 major goals for next year. I got started on that. I also realized I need a solid 5-year plan.

Get Outside

Sitting in a conference room, lecture hall, or classroom all day makes you tired no matter how much sleep you get or what your natural energy level is.

Getting outside, ideally for a walk, gets your heart pumping and makes you more alert and happier.

Checking out new surroundings is also good for your brain. So no matter how engaging the materials or how many people you want to meet, spend a little time outdoors.

What are your tips for getting the most out of a conference or other educational opportunity?

Let me know in the comments.

Until Friday–

L.M. Lilly

Marketing Your Novel: Wide vs. Exclusive

This week I’m at a conference for writers on business and marketing. More on that in coming weeks. (We’ve been asked not to blog about it until the end.)

Because I’ve been so focused on marketing, this Friday I’m recommending A Tale of Two Marketing Systems, one of the best articles I’ve read on the difference between selling your books wide–meaning on multiple platforms such as Kobo, iBooks, Nook, etc.–and selling them exclusively through Amazon.

Being exclusive to Amazon offers benefits, including putting your ebooks into Kindle Unlimited. People then read the books as part of their subscription. The author gets paid per page.

The rate varies, but it can adds an income stream. My non-fiction book Super Simple Story Structure: A Quick Guide to Plotting and Writing Your Novel is in KU. Every month anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of its earnings are from page reads.

Probably more important, in my view, is that the subscription model makes readers more likely to take a chance on a new book or author because it doesn’t cost them any more.

Going wide, though, also has advantages.

Here are just a few:

You reach readers who don’t read on Kindle;
As I wrote about in Boosting International Sales Of Your Books, you reach more readers in other countries;
You have multiple income streams from multiple platforms, so a change to how one of them pays, sells, or markets doesn’t affect you as much.

Also, while a percentage of my income now comes from KU, I don’t know if I’d earn more or less if I instead made those books widely available.

Some authors-in fact, most authors I’ve talked with–are adamant about the pluses or minuses of wide or exclusive. That’s why I like Gaughran’s post so much.

Rather than advocating for one or the other, Gaughran analyzes the different marketing strategies that work best for each. He compares the KU approach to the hare and the wide approach to the tortoise.

My two biggest takeaways were:

The way to succeed is completely different depending on whether you are wide or exclusive;
Choose one or the other, but don’t try to mix both.

That second point raises some questions for me, as right now I’m mixing both. My Awakening series is wide, and my standalone novel, short story collection, and all my non-fiction books are in KU.

Based on the article, I’m thinking I might make all my fiction wide. If I do, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Until Sunday–