Too Many #Authors!

Ever since I started selling my e-books on-line I've been building up a list of contacts. These include other authors, readers, editors, magazines reviewers, promotion sites and lots more. Over the years I've noticed quite a few patterns, but some stand out more than others.

Some are obvious, like most scifi writers are male and most romance writers are female, but others have surprised me. Nearly half the horror writers I've discovered are female - call me sexist but I didn't expect that. I also didn't expect there to be so many paranormal romance writers. And by "so many", I mean more than all other authors added together. It's a popular genre but it's beginning to look like there are actually more people writing it than reading it.

On Twitter alone I have found just over ten thousand authors, so far! Some have written dozens of books, some make a full-time living from it, some are struggling to sell more than a few dozen copies and others are still working on their first novel.

I seem to be in a minority in believing that YA (Young Adult) and MG (Middle Grade [US]) are not genres in themselves, but rather age or audience classifications. So many authors say they write YA when I think they really mean that they write for a YA audience. After all you can write many genres for YA and MG (and any other age group).

A huge number of authors describe themselves as "aspiring" but even more seem to use the phrase "best selling". Far more authors use the "best selling" phrase to describe themselves or their work than can possibly qualify for it in the sense that most readers infer from it.

The sheer number of authors has astounded me. As to whether it's a good thing or a bad thing for readers I have yet to decide. I don't know if readers are spoilt for choice with an incredible selection of quality new books being published every day or are just wading through a tidal wave of dross (now there's a mixed up image!) desperately searching for something worth reading.

It's no wonder I struggle to get anyone to download my free novel even though it gets excellent reviews.

#Marketing: More important than #Writing?

To be honest I wonder if that has always been the case. There are many, many authors out there all clamouring to get their works in front of as many readers as possible. Sometimes if feels like there are more authors than readers on many of the social networks, and that's a pretty depressing situation if you are trying to persuade people to buy or even just read your books. The situation only seems to be getting worse as more people try their hand at self-publishing.

It seems that everyone and their dog has written a book and wants me to read it. The quality threshold enforced (to varying degrees!) by traditional publishers no longer applies and now it is a minefield for readers. Ratings and reviews can be, and often are, faked. This has led to a slightly distorted experience for both readers and authors. For example I've found that having a single good review is worse than having no reviews, as people seem to assume that the good review is just written by me. It went from a few sales per week to almost nothing at all as soon as the review was posted. (See more...) I suspect that potential readers assume that a single good review was probably posted by the author.

I know some readers simply won't bother with indie authors because they have been burnt in the past by poorly written or unedited work.

Marketing is a tricky and ever changing area that independent authors simply must learn if they want to sell books. Sadly it seems that charisma, marketing and salesmanship have become more important than the actual quality of writing. Just coming up with a good story and writing it well just aren't enough, if they ever were. It often appears that skill with social networking is vastly more important than any literary abilities.

I don't actually have statistics to back this up, but it certainly appears every month sees more and more budding authors entering the market and trying to sell their wares to a market which is simply not expanding as quickly. Standing out from the crowd keeps getting more difficult and simply writing better probably isn't going to make the difference.

If you want to sell your own books you either need to work extremely hard or have a lot of luck. I don't believe in relying on luck. Long before you publish your first novel, it is important to grow an online following on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and as many other suitable social networks as you have the time to work on. Especially at first your efforts will seem like a waste of time. Having a few dozen or even a few hundred followers is not going to make any difference. Ideally you want to be able to measure your social following in 1,000s or 10,000s.

If you post a link to your latest release on your profile/stream/feed don't expect 100% of those followers to immediately click on it. If you get 20% to click the link you are doing very well. Most people I've spoke too reckon than between 5% and 10% is much more usual if your followers have chosen to follow you because they are interested in your work. If you have gone on Facebook and joined posted "Follow Me!" messages in loads of the groups dedicated to building followings as fast as possible, then your click through rate is probably going to be closer to 0.5%.

Now factor in how many of those people will actually continue on to purchase the book (10% if your blurb is excellent and cover eye-catching) and even thousands of followers will only lead to a handful of sales. If you have followers measured in the 100,000s then decent sales will follow.

Of course it's not this simple. There are many factors that affect your sales, but if you have not thought through and prepared your means of promoting and marketing your novel, then just being an excellent book is not going to make it a best seller.

Finding your #Genre

When I originally set about writing novels, I thought the whole "genre" issue was no problem at all. My novels were going to be Science Fiction therefore I would place them squarely in the Science Fiction pigeon whole and everything would be fine.

Defining a Genre

Experience often complicates things or, at least, reveals more details and complexity than you saw at the beginning. Any Science Fiction author with a book or two behind them will tell you that there is a LOT more to it than that. First of all Sci Fi has a plethora of sub-genres, including Space Opera, Hard Sci Fi, Military Sci Fi, Steam Punk (and a range of other "Punks"), Apocalyptic,Post-apocalyptic, Time Travel, Dystopian and many, many more.

Some groups have made serious efforts to formalise the definitions of each of these, but most authors I've spoken too rarely find that their work falls into a single genre. Some authors manage to pick a key genre and a couple of sub-genres but others, like me, find their output really spans about half-a-dozen genres and various from book to book. This makes it extremely difficult for readers to categorise me.

Now I fully realise the importance of tying your work down to a genre as it makes it easier to market, easier to categorise when submitting it for reviews and book directories, and much easier when you come to talk to agents about it. They tend to prefer a clear cut genre for your work so they know how to pitch it and who to pitch it to. Your children's science fiction vampire romance book is going to be hard to sell no matter how good it is, as publishers won't know what to do with it.

How Do I Categorise My Own Books?

My first book (Astronomicon: The Beginning) was basically classic sci-fi in style. The protagonists were sent to colonise a planet around another star system, things go wrong and they end up fighting to survive in a hostile environment. However this forms the introduction to a much bigger story of human development, politics, technology, space exploration and ultimately war. This now crosses into Space Opera territory.

The second half of the book strays much more into the politics behind the events of the first half, revealing the civil unrest in the mining colonies on Jupiter's moons and sweeping political changes back on Earth. Military action around Jupiter and an assassination on Earth show that there are much greater problems brewing for the human race as a whole. A hefty part of this could easily be categorised as Military Sci Fi.

The second book in the series (Astronomicon: Distant Relatives) is more of an action thriller set within a science fiction setting. A first contact situation opens the story, but surprisingly that is soon overtaken by events of a more local nature. Again the story explores some of the politics involved, but also covers events back on the colony from the first book where a mini-war has broken out.

I find it a little depressing that some reviews have referred to this book as a bridging piece between the first book and the ongoing storylines. That was not intended, and the book features a ranges of large-scale  key events in the on going story. It is most certainly not a space filler, but I suppose being a bridge is necessary factor in not being the first or last book in a series. That doesn't stop it being an exciting and vital bridge.

The third book (Astronomicon: Those Left Behind) is in many ways a different creature again. It mainly covers the lives of two characters: The ruler of an alien race desperately trying to salvage something in the face of imminent annihilation of his species, and an office worker striving to save the lives of his two children during an alien invasion.

This splits it equally between Military Sci Fi and Apocalyptic Sci Fi. Of course it still fits in with the ongoing Astronomicon storyline, so it's also Space Opera. Which is the main genre? I genuinely don't know.

So what genre am I?

If I had to place all my books (and myself as an Author) into a single category, I would have to make one up. I would call it "Human Science Fiction". Many readers have told me that they enjoy my books even though they don't usually like science fiction and I am convinced that is due to my books being about people. Events occur in a science fiction setting, sometimes driven by technology, sometimes aliens, sometimes even religion, but I tackle those events from the perspective of the people within the story. You see how bigger events affect the lives of people, how they adapt, the challenges they face, the humour, the emotion and fear. I don't write about a shiny future, ruled by computers and where the whole world is united (like Star Trek). I write human stories where people act according to their ideals, fears, greed, patriotism and emotions. This makes it much easier for everyone to relate and empathise with the characters, even if they don't normally "do" science fiction.

Who thought different countries would buy my e-books so differently!

I have been assessing my book sales over the last twelve months.Variations are to be expected, but the shape of my sales statistics have been changing over the last twelve months much faster than I would have expected. The truly difficult part is working out why.

*For my analysis I'm only going to use sales in primarily English-speaking countries. I do sell a few books in Germany and France etc., but not enough to be statistically viable for analysis.

Astronomicon 1: The Beginning:

Last year this book was my bestseller in the US, but not any more. Now it sells best in Canada, with the UK coming a close second. US sales have become very weak and I have no idea what has changed.

Astronomicon 2: Distant Relatives:

This book's sales were always split down the middle between the US and the UK. The pickup rate from the first book to the second was markedly higher in the UK, but I always assumed that as I'm British, American readers might find my writing, especially dialogue, a little alien. Now it sells well in Canada and the UK but US sales have dwindled badly.

Astronomicon 3: Those Left Behind:

Annoyingly, this one was never a popular seller. I have always been a little depressed by that as I firmly believe it is the best piece of science fiction I have ever written so far. However it's Canadian sales have increased markedly over the past twelve months and US sales have all but stopped. UK sales have remained pretty static.

Astronomicon: Icarus:

By far my best selling book currently, but last year it was selling two copies in the UK for every one sold in the US. Now the US outsells the UK about 6 to 1. Canada also beats the UK hands down on this one and I have no idea why. It seems that:

• Canadian readers buy this book and then go on to buy all the other Astronomicon books.
• American readers buy this book with greater enthusiasm but most stop there.
• British readers shy away from this one, instead preferring to begin with Astronomicon: The Beginning.

Conclusions:

Astronomicon: Icarus has benefited from an ongoing 99c offer which has clearly boosted its sales greatly. Maybe US readers are more easily swayed by a low price offer? 

If I could persuade US readers to buy my other books after purchasing Astronomicon: Icarus, that would fix my US sales issue. Equally if I could somehow make Icarus as popular in the UK as it is across the Atlantic that would also be a major boost.

Anyway, for now my focus is on writing Astronomicon: Deadline, another standalone novel within the Astronomicon universe. Once that is ready for publication I think I will have to sit back and reassess my marketing efforts. If with each book I write, I learn more, hone my skills and expand my reach into social networking then success can be eventually achieved without relying on luck. Marketing is important but it gets easier with more and better books to market.

Is there too much new #scifi?

I've been writing and publishing science fiction for almost three years now. Science fiction has been my hobby and fascination for as long as I can remember, so when I started writing it seemed the obvious genre work within.

What I've learned from the last three years is that there are an incredible number of people writing science fiction novels and short stories, and probably just as many creating fan fiction for most of the well-known movies and television series.

I am coming to the conclusion that there's only limited space in the market and the huge number of science fiction writers out there is simply producing far too much material for the market. Up to a point the good stuff will float to the top, but I suspect that these days there is such a deluge of material that even some of the good stuff simply gets lost in the crowd. No-one can possibly be aware of everything that's published (and by that I am very much including the self-publishing world) so those authors without the marketing and promotion skills to draw attention to their work will tend to sink without trace, regardless of how good their writing is.

Short of persuading less people to write science fiction, I don't see any fix for this unfortunate situation.

Although my love of writing science fiction isn't about to end, I'm going to jump ship and try out another genre. What out "Crime Thrillers" - here I come!

Do you always start with the 1st book in a series?

I realise that this will vary depending on the series, but I thought the urge to start with the first would be much stronger with most readers than it appears it is in reality.

Each of the last two novels I chose to read were both members of their respective series, but neither were the introductory novel. I did not deliberately decide to jump in part way through, it was down to which books were physically available at the time. Although I would have preferred to start at the beginning, it was not a strong enough factor to stop me reading either book.

The art for any author is to make any subsequent novels in a series readable and enjoyable without any prior knowledge from previous instalments, whilst satisfying those readers who have absorbed every last detail from previous books. It is a difficult balance to achieve.

My Astronomicon series of science fiction novels has been moderately successful, but the sales curve has not matched what I expected. I always assumed that the first novel (Astronomicon: The Beginning) would outright sell the best, and then 50-60% of those readers would go on to buy the second novel (Astronomicon: Distant Relatives). Predicting the proportional sales of the third novel (Astronomicon: Those Left Behind) was going to be trickier, but I was hoping for it to sell at least 75% as well as book two.

Everyone has told me that it is clearly the best novel of the three, so I was hopeful that it would get close to matching book two's sales. However, for the last couple of months, book three has been selling more than book one and book two combined! Maybe quality matters much more than position number within a series?

What has your experience been of sales of novels within a trilogy or series?

What's the best price for an e-book by an unknown author?

You've finished your first e-novel, polished it, got it proof-read and edited and now it's ready to publish for the rest of the world to read. Whether you put it out on Amazon Kindle (KDP), SmashWords or Apple iBooks, you need to pick a suitable price for it. The price is one of the most critical decisions you will make and could make or destroy your e-books sales.


This guide will explain the pitfalls and help you decide on the right price.


Read more...

Is it worth #publishing one chapter at a time?

The world of indie publishing is a large and often complicated world. There are an ever increasing ways to publish your work and everyone seems to have different idea of what works. I suspect that different genres and formats are better suited to different methods and media, but are there any firm patterns emerging?

I've tried publishing e-books, paperbacks, short stories and even publishing one chapter at a time on Wattpad.com. The latter has been an interesting experience but I don't feel it's worked too well so far.

I decided to publish the whole of the first Astronomicon novel chapter-by-chapter on Wattpad.com, but rather than just cutting and pasting each chapter, after much research,  I went for a slightly different approach. I created shorter chapters by cutting each chapter into several shorter ones. This both catered for the tendency towards short attention spans online and gave me many more chapters to post. I am currently posting about five chapters per week so having more chapters extends the run time of the experiment. On Wattpad it seems that a lot of short chapters work better than a few long ones. I guess short instalments are more accessible and less of a commitment?

If you want to see this format, check it out on Wattpad.com. There are 25 chapters posted at the time of writing this. What I am most interested to see is the fall off rate of each chapter, to see how many people are still reading by the last chapter. It could prove to be a useful diagnostic tool as any poorly performing chapter, in terms of keeping the readers' attention, should stand out. This may allow me to improve the guilty chapters and increase the book's ability to grip readers.

I will report back soon.

What's a good number of novels in a series?

We've all experienced trilogies, quadrilogies and even longer series of novels. Some authors only ever write standalone individual books, others love to write larger stories - sometimes a LOT bigger.

But what do readers like?

There's a lot of advantages for an author, especially an indie author, in writing a series as it can really help with the marketing side of things. It allows the author to pour most of their marketing effort into the start of the series in the sensible hope that most readers of the first novel will go on to buy some or all of the rest of the series. Obviously that relies on a good first novel.

The big weakness with that plan is that your first novel is most probably the worst one you'll ever write. Book 3 will probably be a much better novel as you will have honed and polished your writing skills, but readers prefer not to enter a series part way through. If your first novel is good, you are on safe ground, but if the first in the series is the weak link it can kill sales of all the others.

So what's the solution? Some people recommend writing two or three novels and just throwing them away, but I would never advise that. Your first novels are not only necessary to improve your creative skills but also to sort out the skills and help needed to edit and finish your novels. Attempts to promote those novels will also teach you a huge amount about the market, advertising, sales blurb, making contacts and how to use social media to promote your brand. You're going to make mistakes, probably a lot of mistakes, and it's much better to make those mistakes on your early books.

Save your best efforts, once you've learned some of the tricks of the trade and how to avoid the many pitfalls, for your later books. This is a circular thing as the tips you learn from attempting to market your first couple of books can also help you plan and write your later books. Whilst it's nice to think of writing something new within your genre, you also need to not stray too far from what readers in your genre expect. Feedback can be especially important here, and you won't get much feedback if you don't publish anything.

So how does this all work together?

Well the detail is very much up to you, but I would advise writing a couple of standalone novels first. It's the best way to learn and they will be most helpful to practice your marketing skills, building a following and making some useful contacts. With all you learn from that experience, crack on with a series.

Some genres are better suited to a series of novels than others, but within Fantasy, Science Fiction and Thrillers, a series will usually be well received by readers and you will benefit from increased sales.

Follow me on Google+ or Facebook for more.

What's the best price for an e-book?

Having now tried a variety of price points, it looks like I'm going to move the price of the introductory Astronomicon (The Beginning) back to $0.99.

It's still selling at its current price of $3.99, but just not achieving the numbers I need. Although I am making slightly more money from selling fewer at the higher price, this has serious repercussions when you assess the whole series. Just over half the people who buy book 1 go on to buy book 2 (Distant Relatives) and almost all of those go on to buy Book 3 (Those Left Behind). Overall, lower sales of book 1 means less people get introduced to the series and I lose out.

There are so many factors to take into consideration when choosing a price for your novels and sometimes the only way to find out for sure is to try out the variants and see what works best for you.

If you want to find out more, try this article.

Looking to #promote your E-book on #Facebook?

If you're reading this, you're probably one of the many aspiring authors out there who have one or more e-books desperately looking for more readers. In the last few days an excellent new resource has been created to help you tap into the vast potential audience of Facebook users.

There are a great number of e-book groups, author groups and e-book promotional groups on Facebook. Finding good ones is tricky, finding ones that aren't just full of spam is even harder.

This new group has the advantage of being strongly moderated. Authors are encouraged to post announcement of promotions and freebie offers of their e-books but all posts are checked to ensure that everything is on topic and suitable for the group. We trying to foster a friendly and helpful atmosphere where authors can learn to maximise their potential and reach an ever growing number of potential readers.

Click here to see the Ebook Specials group.