Indie Publishing in 2013: Why We Can't Party Like It's 2009

Amazon's Kindle turned five years old last week. What an exciting half-decade it's been!

Jeff Bezos showed his genius when he gave his e-reader that name. The device sparked a conflagration that is still pretty much out of control. The old publishing world is in chaos, and nobody has a clue what direction the wildfire will take next.

Although if you want a little glimpse into the crystal ball, Agent Laurie McLean offered some optimistic predictions in her guest post here two weeks ago.

But in just the two weeks since her post, we've seen more wild shifts and changes. HarperCollins, moving to more ebooks, is closing one of its biggest warehouses, and seems set to gobble up Simon and Schuster.  And Simon and Schuster has launched a new scary-scammy self-publishing wing by teaming up with the vanity publisher Author Solutions. Yes, the Author Solutions which was recently acquired by Penguin, which was recently purchased by Random House. And Random House is launching several new digital-only imprints. Ditto HarperCollins' Avon imprint which is actually soliciting your NaNo novels. (Yes. That one surprised the heck out of me, too.)

Confused yet? I sure am. Some people think the Big Six-no-Five-or-is-it-Four—are soon to become the Big One, which still may not be Big enough to compete with what some fear will become the most powerful publishing force of all: the Mighty Zon. (Sarah Lacy at PandoDaily has some interesting things to say on the subject of Amazon's inevitable dominance.)

In five years, Amazon has gone from mail-order bookseller to major player in world publishing.

They did this partly by sparking the "indie revolution".

The "revolution" was another product of Mr. Bezos' marketing genius. He wanted cheap electronic books for his new Kindle, and the Big Six were not about to slash prices for some upstart online retailer with a gadget nobody thought they needed. Publishers wanted to charge the same price for an ebook as they did for a new hardcover book. Amazon accused them of price-fixing and went after them through the legal system.

But meanwhile they needed cheap books for the new Kindle owners.

So they opened up Amazon to self-publishers, offering an author-friendly e-book creation system and a 70% "royalty" to authors who priced their books in the range Amazon wanted to promote: between three and ten dollars.

I'm putting "royalty" in quotes, because, by strict definition, Amazon doesn't pay a traditional royalty. Publishers pay royalties. Retailers take a percentage. For self-publishers, Amazon is a retailer, so technically, Amazon is not paying a 70% royalty; it's taking a 30% sales commission.

But whatever you choose to call it, the payment system worked. Big time. While the Big Six were shrinking advances, lists and print runs—and making increasingly unreasonable demands on authors—the Zon offered writers a new way to distribute their work and actually make money at it.

I first became aware of the viability of Amazon-aided self-publishing in late 2009, when a fellow chick lit author, Elisa Lorello, self-published a novel that went to the top of the Kindle bestseller list on Christmas Day. This was when traditional publishers were treating chick lit as toxic waste and refused to acquire any titles that didn't involve vampires, werepersons, or other dentally-enhanced people-eaters.

I paid even more attention a few months later when Amazon offered Lorello a nice contract with their first publishing venture, Amazon Encore.

Elisa became one of thousands of highly successful e-book self-publishers. In 2010, Amazon's new "indies" like John Locke and Amanda Hocking became household names. At the same time, established, agented novelists like Joe Konrath and Dean Wesley Smith self-published and started to preach the gospel of the "indie" movement.

Then, on March 21, 2011, New York Times bestseller Barry Eisler turned down a six figure advance from St. Martin's  to self-publish his new thriller.

That was the moment when even the nay-sayers had to accept that self-publishing had become mainstream.

Indies went on to become some of the greatest bestsellers of all time, like E. L. James (although, like me, she started with a small press, not strictly self-publishing.) Other self-pubbers made high-profile deals with Hollywood, like Hugh Howey, who sold his Wool books to Ridley Scott for some serious bucks. (Sorry, Hugh, that I tried to give Wool to Speilberg in an earlier version of this post. LOL.)

Subsequently, a whole industry of editors, designers, coders and online advertisers sprang up to minister to the needs of the new indie entrepreneur-authors.

John Locke wrote a book telling how to achieve Amazon success like his. Literally millions of self-publishers flooded the marketplace in 2011 and 2012. (Nobody's quite sure how many ebooks there are, since many don't have ISBNs.)

But a few months ago, things began to change. Amazon made some policy changes that were decidedly less friendly to self-publishers.

Indies who formerly sang Amazon's praises began to get cranky. I recently saw this lament on the Kindleboards (with apologies to Tennessee Ernie Ford.)

You write sixteen books, what do you get

Another year older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the Amazon store.

Some authors even think indies are being "being quietly herded off into a corner" since the DoJ decision brought down the price of Big Six books. Stephen Hise wrote a dark post at Indies Unlimited on the effects of Amazon's policy changes on the indie author.

What we do know is that Amazon's attempt to bring down prices through the legal system finally paid off. Big name ebooks by Big Six authors are now selling for reasonable, and even give-away prices.

So indies aren't as necessary to the Amazon bottom line as they once were. I'm not sure things are as dire as Derek Haines says in his post in The Vandal, because established indies report they continue to have good Amazon sales. But he has some legitimate worries.

For the new author who is thinking of launching a career by self-publishing through Amazon, it's important to be aware things have changed drastically in recent months. One thing to be aware of—especially if you're a newbie—is that a lot of the most powerful marketing strategies of the "Kindle Millionaires" are no longer viable:

#1 Garnering lots of of Amazon reviews: A great deal of John Locke's success was due to his huge number of positive Amazon reviews. His "how I made millions" book claimed this was due to his expertise in targeting the right reader.

But it turns out his expertise was actually in buying fake reviews.

The paid review and sock-puppet review scandals that rocked Amazon this summer after revelations by Locke--and an embarrassing number of others--have resulted in a draconian crackdown on all Amazon reviews.

The L.A. Times reports that many authors have found their reviews disappearing. Some popular legitimate reviewers have had all their reviews (of indies and trad-pubbed books alike) deleted with no explanation. I've seen lots of reports from authors who have lost dozens of reviews for no apparent reason. And authors who question the arbitrary removals are told they'll be banned from selling on Amazon forever if they dare to question any action by the Great Zon. Even Amazon advocate Joe Konrath thinks they've gone over to the dark side with this.

Amazon now bans authors from reviewing other authors' books in their own genre. They claim this is because their TOS guidelines ban reviewing by a "competitor," and this protects against attacks on rivals by sock puppets. But they delete positive and negative reviews alike. And not only from authors in their own genre. Some people have been told all published authors have been banned from reviewing. (If the New York Times or the New Yorker did this, they'd have to go out of business. Authors have ALWAYS reviewed other authors.)

They are also deleting reviews by anybody with a name similar to the author. I've had reviews deleted from anybody named "Allen". The rational is that anybody with the same name has a financial interest in my work. (Yes, Woody Allen, Joan Allen, and General John Allen have a big financial interest in my books :-) )

As you can imagine, this has made many reviewers wary of posting anything to Amazon, and has left readers jaded and untrusting. Seeking reviews is now a much less sure-fire way of making sales. Unfortunately, search engines still favor books with more reviews. Not a good situation for a newbie self-publisher.

2) Using free ebooks to raise your Amazon profile. Elisa Lorello had her big Christmas 2009 success because she offered her book free on Amazon that day. That pushed her to the top of the "bestseller" list and raised her book from obscurity to the top of suggested "also boughts" and "top sellers" that appear on every Kindle.

But in late 2011, Amazon introduced KDP Select. Only authors enrolled in the "Select" program are now allowed freebie give-aways. Select requires exclusivity. If you sell ebooks at Barnes and Noble, iTunes, Smashwords, Kobo, etc—or even on your own website—you aren't allowed to list a book as "free" on Amazon.

And the "also boughts" and "top sellers" also heavily favor books in the KDP Select program.

Until recently, Amazon matched the price you charge for your book on other platforms, so it was possible to get around the KDP Select exclusivity by making your book free on Smashwords, but many of us are finding that even after several months, Amazon doesn't seem to be matching a "free" price.

They are however, sweetening the pot for KDP Select members by doubling the price they pay for "borrows" (Select books are also free to borrow for Amazon Prime members.) Now many Select books will get more than the sale price for a borrow. It's tempting, but only if you have other books available at other retailers. I think it's unwise for anybody to be 100% dependent on the whims of Amazon's ever-changing algorithms.

3) Selling mass quantities of 99 cent ebooks to become a bestseller on Amazon. A year ago, D.D. Scott, the force of nature behind the Writers Guide to E-Publishing, preached the gospel of "Snickers-bar marketing" and the 99 cent ebook.

But that has all changed. Here's what she said last week,

"Up until a few months ago, using the 99 Cent Price Point got you a ton of fabulous VISIBILITY ….You could more than make up for a higher royalty per book (using a price point of $2.99 or above) because of the higher quantity of books sold at the lower 99 Cent price.

BUT…not anymore!!!

Due to the agency pricing/cost-fixing schemes and the resulting Department of Justice settlement with a few of The Big Six Publishers – with several more holding out for litigation, many Big Six/TradiPubs are lowering their prices to between 99 Cents and $3.99.

Also…and this is HUGE…Amazon’s algorithms have definitely changed to favor the TradiPub books at these lower prices."

There was also a change in the Amazon algorithms last May that give a 99 cent book sale less "weight" in sales rankings. To be counted as a full "sale" a book has to sell for $2.99 or more.

4)  Getting featured on Kindle Nation Daily, E-Reader News Today, Pixel of Ink or other sites for e-book readers. Recently the big sites for ebook promos announced they will be severely restricting the number of free books they list, due to a firm request from Amazon. Here's how they put it at ENT.

"While Amazon cannot "make" us do anything with our website, they can tell us they will not pay us anymore if we don't do what they want us to do.  And what they've told us to do is cut down A LOT on the free books or they will not pay us at all.  I can't go into detail on what they've told us but this is something that will be affecting all sites similar to ours within the next month."

5) Promoting your work on Facebook. Facebook is still "free" for family and friends, but now you have to pay to use it for marketing. Meghan Ward talked in her post this week about "Promoted Posts", which Facebook launched in May of this year.

"For $5 $10, or $15, Facebook will make your post more visible within your followers’ news feeds. If you don’t promote your post, only a fraction of your followers will ever see it." 

Facebook's changes mean that only about 16% of all your followers now see your regular posts. If you want more people to see them, you have to pay around $50. Even for family photos and LOL Cat videos.

~ ~ ~

So does all this mean the indie movement is over?

Not at all. Simon and Schuster wouldn't be making their clueless foray into self-publishing if they thought indie publishing was going to diminish.  

But I think it's important not to think of it as the "Kindle" movement any more. I think the "revolution" needs to wean itself from the Mighty Zon and Facebook to be truly "indie".

The truth is, "indie" is a misnomer for someone who is 100% dependent on a mega-corporation. Yes, when you publish on Amazon you're an "independent contractor" rather than an employee, but that isn't necessarily a ticket to financial independence.

I think the indies of the future will need to focus on smaller outlets like Smashwords, Kobo and Barnes and Noble, even though they may require more initial work.

Smashwords may be a little cumbersome, but it is a truly "independent" company. Mark Coker started it because he's an indie author himself, and I think right now he still only has about thirteen employees. It's still a very "indie" operation.

And a number of indies are finding Smashwords is their best source of revenue. Horror author Edward M. Grant said on the Passive Voice blog this week,

"I’ve sold about 4x as many e-books through Smashwords and its distributors as through Amazon in the last three months, and made more money on most of the sales."

If you want to support independent publishing, look for ebook titles to buy at Smashwords before clicking automatically to Amazon. You can buy a book there for your Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iPad or any other device just as easily as with Amazon. And there are a whole lot of great books free. (Shameless plug: My comic mystery SHERWOOD, LTD is free on Smashwords.) Leaving your reviews on Smashwords instead of Amazon may also have a greater impact. Certainly your review will have a better chance of a long shelf-life.

Kobo is another very author-friendly retailer that's just beginning to hit its stride. They're the biggest online book retailer in Canada, where they started, and now they've been acquired by e-commerce giant, Rakuten, they're getting a good chunk of the global market.

British indie superstar Saffina Desforges says Kobo is blitzing the airwaves with adverts for their mini ereaders, which are "cute and back lit--with a very attractive price tag of 40 quid."

Kobo reps tell me they plan to start forums and discussion groups to rival the Kindleboards. Let's hope they'll be monitored by polite Canadians so we can leave the crankypants Kindleboarders behind to snipe at each other in the Amazon jungle.

Let me be clear: I'm not telling indies to abandon Amazon. It still has 43% of the ebook market--which may go up again with the phenomenal success of the new Kindle Fire tablet.

And I think KDP Select is great for launching a book, but I suggest using it for the minimum of three months. Do your freebies and get your title and name out there. But then I think it's best to opt out and spread your book to as many platforms as possible.

Amazon's shift to favoring the traditional publishers may mean fewer "Kindle Millionaires," but I have no doubt there will be new Indie E-Book Millionaires.

For the new writers out there who are on the fence about self-publishing, my advice is to keep your options open. Don't make your decision based on old news. The new digital imprints and unagented submissions at Random House and HarperCollins could be game-changers. (They are offering real publishing contracts: the opposite of Simon and Schuster's vanity publishing imprint.)

And don’t forget there are wonderful small digital publishers like mine who pay great royalties and take all the financial risk by providing cover design, editing, formatting and even some marketing. A niche publisher that carries only your genre and targets your market can be a very good choice for a newbie writer who is not an expert in business or marketing. (Just make sure the publisher is legit and check them out with Writer Beware. If you have to pay up front or sign away any rights, you don't want to go there.)

Because now more than ever, indies will have to become market-savvy entrepreneurs. Here's advice from Kristen McLean at Tools of Change for Publishing.

"In order to be well-equipped for this new environment, we think authors and content creators need as much training in business and publishing expertise as they do in writing. They need to understand deep structural issues like the way data flows around the industry, new modes of discovery, new thinking about consumer behavior, how to read the numbers, the potential of new technology, and how to build an effective team around themselves so they can run their businesses."

One way for authors to keep up with publishing business news is to follow Jane Friedman, who has launched a new link list today of Best Business Advice for Writers.

Whether or not Amazon is "dumping" the indies, it's time to rethink the rules that have been working for self- and small publishers for the past four years. We all need to plan innovative marketing strategies that involve smaller, more indie-friendly companies.

You don't want to find you've escaped the oppression of the Big Six only to be squashed by the Big Zon.

Book News: Anne's new Camilla Randall mystery, NO PLACE LIKE HOME will be launching next week. It's set in San Luis Obispo, "the happiest town on earth" and explores how close we all are to homelessness. (I'm totally in love with this cover by Laura Morrigan.)

Also, we'll be having some exciting give-aways of ebooks AND paper books for HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE...AND KEEP YOUR E-SANITY on this blog and Catherine Ryan Hyde's next week. Stop by for a chance to win free books!

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How a 91-year-old Author's Debut Mystery Hit the Bestseller List

NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS!

Recently, my publisher, MWiDP, relaunched Shirley S. Allen’s cozy mystery, ACADEMIC BODY as an ebook. Sales had slowed for the print version published by Mainly Murder Press in 2010, but Mark Williams saw my ad for the book on this blog, read it and loved it. He saw a strong future for it as an ebook--especially in the international market, where classic mysteries still sell.

Shirley S. Allen happens to be my mom, who turned 91 years old in May. 

So this is an emphatic lesson for every aspiring writer out there: IT'S NEVER TOO LATE! Keep at it and your publishing dreams will come true. 

The ebook of ACADEMIC BODY launched in June and had steady sales, but we were kind of disappointed in the numbers until last weekend, when Mark decided to give it some of the free days allowed to ebooks in Amazon’s KDP Select program.

I should note there’s a certain amount of controversy surrounding the concept of giving free ebooks. On the plus side, it’s great advertising that costs nothing.  But the whole concept of free books rubs some authors the wrong way, since it seems to contribute to the devaluing of our product.

But with the advent of Amazon's KDP Select program last year, the freebie became the technique of choice for launching ebooks—both for self-publishers and small presses.

It worked brilliantly when Amazon algorithms gave free books the same boost in “popularity” as their regular inventory. Catherine Ryan Hyde had a huge success with KDP Select free days when launching her self-published novel WHEN I FOUND YOU. I wrote about Catherine’s phenomenal success last month in my post Social Media vs. A New York Times Book Review Cover: Which Sells More Books. After dismal initial sales, Catherine made her book free for three days and the subsequent bounce made her enough money to buy a Lexus. Not a brand new one, but a very, very nice car.

A change in the Amazon algorithms on May 3rd made cheap and free books much less bouncy, but still Catherine was able to launch her book DON’T LET ME GO with a two-day give-away that gave a nice boost to sales.

Author Shirley S. Allen

Catherine and I did the same thing with our nonfiction book HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE. The freebie got us to #1 in free writing books for three days, ahead of the new Eisler-Konrath book, and two of agent Noah Lukeman’s offerings. But then sales went down to well below where they’d been before we went free. We not only got no bounce, but the freebie seems to have worked against us.

Except that it got us some very nice reviews. Thanks to the lovely readers who took the time to write them. Free books that get thoughtful reviews are never wasted. (And it’s still only $2.99, everybody: great deal! And it tells you important stuff about launching your writing career that you won’t get anywhere else, whether you’re self-pubbing or going the traditional route. OK, end of commercial break.)  

It was a learning experience. Nonfiction books with a limited audience do not seem to benefit from free give-aways.

In spite of this, we decided to go ahead and offer my mom’s book as a freebie last weekend. Quite frankly, our hopes weren’t that high. This book is a classic cozy set in a small New England town. It’s beautifully written and plotted, but the criminal activity is all offstage. There’s none of the mayhem, high body count or torture fashionable in today’s crime fiction. But it’s also not one of the crafty cozies that are currently popular with older readers: nobody knitted or tatted or made throw pillows out of dryer lint. The sleuths are a couple of sophisticated middle-aged married people who love each other--much more Nick and Nora Charles than Alex Cross or Stephanie Plum.

But what happened next was epic!

ACADEMIC BODY shot up to the top ten in the thrillers and suspense category. And it started to climb up the top 100 in the entire Kindle free store. By the second day, it was at #2 in thrillers—probably the most competitive fiction genre—and #30 of all free Kindle books. And it stayed there.

And, curse you Bob Mayer, it might even have gone to #1 if Bob’s new Black Ops thriller hadn’t been free the same weekend.

By the time ACADEMIC BODY went off its three free days, it had over 10,500 downloads. Remember how I said last month that the bump a book gets from a New York Times Book Review cover can be as little as 82 actual books sold? Compare that with moving 10,500 books!

Obviously the big difference is that the NYT author’s book cost money and my mom’s didn’t. But still, over 10K people decided to download her book to their Kindles. Considering how many 1000s of Kindle books are free at any given moment, and how many of us have Kindles already loaded than more books than we can read in the next 10 years, it’s pretty durn amazing.

So why did this particular free book climb to such heights?

Here are some things I suspect may have helped:

1) The Perfect Cover. The cover of ACADEMIC BODY, designed by Patricia L. Foltz of Mainly Murder Press, shows an inviting room bathed in amber light—lined with books—and just the legs of a deceased person in the shadowy foreground. It’s the classic “body in the library.” It immediately brings to mind Agatha Christie.

And those books in the library are so inviting and warm. Perhaps as we lose paper books to technology, we’re already getting a little nostalgic for them? To a reader, there’s hardly anything more inviting than a cozy room full of books.

The cover is a seductive invitation to read.

2) A Great Bio. I rewrote my mother’s bio for this book launch, adding material about her academic achievements. In the past, publishers haven’t wanted to advertise that she has a PhD in English Literature and wrote the definitive book on the life of London’s great 19^th century Shakespearean actor-manager, Samuel Phelps. Her publishers were afraid she’d sound stuffy and boring.

But in today’s world of so much not-ready-for-prime-time self-publishing, I thought readers would like to know the author has a superb command of the English language. Plus the protagonist of ACADEMIC BODY is a theater director. I figure it’s a plus to know the author has in-depth knowledge of the subject matter.

3) An Established Social Network. No, my Mom isn’t spending her days on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. The network is mine. It was easy to use my own connections to promote her book. Plus I went to some senior sites and FB and LinkedIn pages for alums of Bryn Mawr—our alma mater. That allowed me to reach out to people who aren’t in the current writing scene and didn’t know about free Kindle ebooks, but were very interested in books about academia. And of course they wanted to support a fellow alum.

4) Serendipity. We didn’t think about the Olympics when we chose last weekend, but I think the games worked in our favor. Most of the people interested in action and sports were glued to the tube, watching the spectacular competitions in London—so the readers who might be more likely to buy an action-adventure type of thriller were otherwise occupied. The non-sports fans were at loose ends, looking for some less sweaty entertainment.

5) Writing in a Genre that’s Under-Represented by Mainstream Publishing. It seems readers still want classic mysteries. In fact, they may be starved for them. Contemporary mysteries usually fall into the James Patterson/Steig Larsson category (graphically violent serial killer thrillers) or Janet Evanovich types (rom-com mysteries like mine) or the crafty cozies I mentioned earlier. 

But classic mysteries are puzzles that engage the mind and leave the reader satisfied that justice has prevailed. At the end of a classic mystery, all is right with the world. Evolved intelligence has prevailed over primitive brute force. Reading a classic mystery gives order to the universe--like listening to Mozart.

After the spectacular success of the freebie days, ACADEMIC BODY did get a nice bounce. Not enough for my mom to trade in her old Acura, but the book is selling much, much better than it did before the freebie days. And the paper version from Mainly Murder seems to be moving, too.

Does that mean giving away free books will work for everybody? No. As I say, it didn't work for our nonfic. book. And I’m not sure how much longer cheap and free books are going to be of benefit as marketing tools.

Mark Coker of Smashwords said in an interview with Forbes this week that he thinks many self-publishers are undervaluing their work. Like Amazon, Smashwords has changed its algorithm so it no longer counts free and 99-cent books as “sales” with the same weight as sales of books priced at $2.99 and up. Mr. Coker says he “found that the $2.99 to $5.99 price band appears to be the sweet spot for indie authors, those prices over-performed the average in terms of income for the author. But 99¢ and $1.99 under-performed.”

And free? It still seems to be working for some fiction right now--it sure did for my mom. Her next book—a historical—is due out next month and we'll see how that works out. But whatever happens, I know nothing's going to stand in the way of her dreams!

What about you, scriveners? Have give-aways worked to promote your work? Do you read a lot of free Kindle books? How do you feel about free ebooks? Do you have a dream you'll never give up on?

Don’t forget the Central Coast Writers Conference in beautiful San Luis Obispo CA. It will be held on September 21^st and 22^nd on the campus of Cuesta College. Last year I got to meet Mark Coker in person there.  This year will have an equally exciting roster of speakers and presenters (including yours truly.)

On Wednesday, August 15th, I'll be visiting the awesome blog of M. Christine Weber, to talk about being a writer--and a reader--in the e-age, and why it's such a great time for us all. 

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Social Media vs. a New York Times Book Review Cover: Which Sells More Books?

Yesterday Catherine Ryan Hyde and I spoke with a wonderful bunch of eager authors at the Digital Authors Seminar in San Luis Obispo. They were full of lots of great questions, some of which I’ll address here on the blog in coming weeks.

We talked about the two events that have caused a seismic shift in the publishing business in the last four years: the introduction of the e-reader and the rise of social media as a marketing tool.

Amazon, Facebook and Twitter: love ’em or hate ’em, they have turned the creaky old publishing industry on its ear.

The way books are marketed has been revolutionized as much as their delivery system.

As publishing insider Alan Rinzler said, on his blog last summer: “That $50K space ad in the New York Times? Forget it. It’s only for the author’s mother.”

Last week an article in Publishers Weekly backed up that statement with some hard evidence. They showed that even a favorable review on the cover of the NYT Book Review—one of the most coveted pieces of real estate in the publishing industry (and the object of most authors' most cherished fantasies) doesn’t do much to bump a book’s sales these days.

Most books they studied did double sales for a short time, usually not more than a week or two, and one quadrupled sales—but most didn’t show more than a modest influence.

And when I say modest, I mean just that. Arlie Russell Hochschild’s The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times featured on the May 27^th cover, had sold 52 copies the week before. With the NYT cover bump, it sold 134. That’s right: scoring a review on the cover of the NYT Book Review netted a sales increase of 82 actual books.

So let’s compare that with the e-age way of marketing: using social media and free book giveaways on places like Smashwords and Amazon’s KDP Select.

Catherine Ryan Hyde recently self-published her novels When I Found You and Don’t Let Me Go and put them into KDP Select.

For the uninitiated: KDP Select is a program on Amazon that allows members to borrow the book free and any customer to download the book free during 5 days in every 90-day period. (Authors are paid for downloads by members, but not for the general-public freebie days.)

Why do authors want to give their ebooks away free? Because it’s the best possible advertising (as long as you have a great product) and it costs nothing. Zip Zilch Nada.

Why doesn’t everybody do it? There’s one big obstacle. In order to put a book into KDP Select program, you have to give Amazon exclusive rights to sell that ebook. No B&N. No Smashwords. No Kobo. Not even sales from your own site.

OK, so back to Catherine. In the week before its freebie days, When I Found You was selling “in the tens” per month. After it zoomed to #1 on its free days, it continued to sell thousands.

Within a week, Catherine had earned enough on that book alone to buy a car. (A very nice car. A Lexus.  I got to ride in it yesterday.)

Then let’s look at Ms. Hochschild, with her coveted NYT real estate.  On a trad. pub royalty of 17% or so on 82 units, Ms. Hochschild could barely buy a set of Hot Wheels. (Not to criticize her book. It looks brilliant.)

So e-age marketing wins over the New York Times Book Review cover. (Aside from having something suitable for framing for your Mom.)

But: it’s important to note that Catherine couldn’t have achieved her success with a giveaway alone. An author can offer any number of free books, but if nobody knows they exist, nobody will download them.

That’s why your social media presence is so important. By the time you have a book to sell/give away, you need to have a network in place that can spread the word to thousands.

When Catherine’s second self-pubbed book, Don’t Let Me Go went free last weekend, Catherine tweeted it to her 1150 followers. Since I’m one of them, I retweeted to my 3200 followers. Two followers even thanked me—and because most people don’t thank for tweets—I assume many more downloaded it. I also assume they went on to broadcast the news to all their Tweeple.

This is why Twitter is probably your most important marketing tool. But you have to get that network established long before your book comes out. One of the best ways to do that is to tweet links to things that your readers might be interested in. Write sci-fi? Tweet links to trailers of new sci-fi films, sci-fi bloggers, etc. Write cookbooks? Tweet links to great recipes--not all your own. :-) Write women’s fiction? Tweet everything Jennifer Weiner says about valuing the genre. 

The point is to have people in place who have a habit on clicking on your links for good content. Not just your own stuff.

Catherine also did a Facebook promotion coordinated by an outfit called Shindig: a two-hour chat that fans could attend for free. It was a rousing success—and Don’t Let Me Go shot to #1 in the whole Kindle Store and stayed there for three days. It’s now selling better than any of her other books.

This is why you need a social media presence.  Yes, even if you do get that NYT review.

I’m aware that people in the know will say the freebie days on Amazon are not working as well as they used to—and may soon not work at all. The Amazon algorithms changed again recently, and the freebie bounce in real sales isn’t as high as it used to be. There’s also the serious drawback of the exclusivity demanded by Amazon to enroll in the KDP Select program that allows the free days.

But no matter what new promo comes up next, chances are pretty certain you’ll only be able to utilize it if you already have a social media platform. Just going on Twitter two weeks before launch and saying “buy my book” (Or worse, hiring somebody to tweet it for you) isn’t going to cut it.

You need to have a network in place. That’s why you want to start now. You don’t necessarily have to Tweet or be on Facebook (Although FB is kind of like the Yellow Pages these days. It’s where people will look for you first, so it’s usually worth it to have at least a “like” page.)

But you can grow your network anywhere: LinkedIn, Goodreads, RedRoom, Pinterest or Tumblr. Or Vlog on You Tube. Find one that works for you and then start making friends.  Don’t spread yourself too thin by going on all of them. Check them out and then linger in places where you find kindred spirits.

Yes. Kindred spirits. People you like. Social media is social. So be sociable. It’s like being at a party. Don’t brag or talk about yourself or beat your chest and bellow. Talk about shared interests.  Like what books you like to read. What music you like. Your obsession with Dr. Who.

So, even if you're a romance writer, don't just talk romance writing. Instead, you might start exchanging Dr. Who lore with a bunch of people on RedRoom, and pretty soon you’ll find a Whovian who also likes romance. Voila—a potential reader. And yes, it’s possible to relate hot romance with Dr. Who. Here’s a great post at Passionate Reads from Marilyn Campbell.

What about your blog? That’s social media, right? If you have a blog is it OK if you’re not on other social media?

Sure. As long as you use that blog to network—going to other blogs and commenting and making friends. Just sitting there in your lair writing about your book and attracting three hits a month isn’t going to help sell your book. For info on how to start an author blog, see my blogpost on How Not to Blog, or read my How to Blog series in the book I’ve written with Catherine, HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE.

Reminder: I strongly urge new and unpublished writers NOT to blog their WIP or post excerpts from an unpublished piece! That’s giving away your first rights and will limit your book’s publishability. It’s OK to blog about writing some of the time when you’re starting out--that’s a way to make friends with other writers and people in the industry. I know a number of authors who found their agents or publishers from recommendations from other writers they met through their blogs.

And I think I should mention this in every post, because about 90% of unpublished writers do this. Don’t forget to post an “about me” page that contains your CONTACT INFORMATION. Without a bio your blog is useless. For help on writing your author bio, read my post on Write Your Author Bio Now.

But blog about other things besides writing. Interview published authors. Review books or movies in your genre. Or network with other Whovians and blog about why the tenth Doctor is by far the best. (OK, I have a fondness for Eccleston, as well.)

Personally, I think a blog is a huge asset for a writer, because it allows you to have a flexible online home base where people can always find you and communicate. Whether it’s an agent who’s trying to decide whether to request your manuscript, a fellow writer who wants to respond to a comment you left on another blog, or a reader who loved your new book, a blog is useful at any stage of your career.

But the main purpose of whatever form of social media you choose is interaction. You need to communicate with other people. Otherwise, you might as well be sitting in your basement holding a sign. No matter how brilliant and beautiful the sign, it doesn’t do any good if nobody sees it. You’ll be wasting your time--and you'll be stuck in reruns of that fantasy where you land the cover of the NYT Book Review.

Which will probably only sell 82 books.

What about you, Scriveners? Do you have hot fantasies about the NYT Book Review? What form of social media works best for you?

***

Thank you, everybody who downloaded HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE…AND KEEP YOUR E-SANITY (written by Catherine Ryan Hyde and yours truly.) Our free days were a rousing success. We immediately went to #1 in writing skills books in the Kindle store in both the US and the UK and stayed there for all three of our freebie days. We beat out Mark Coker's free book, the new conversation between Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler, and Noah Lukeman's new book on agents. All authors I really respect. Pretty amazing.  


But it's still a good deal. It's only $2.99 for another month or so. You can buy it at Amazon in the US, or in the UK. 

Remember, if you don’t have a Kindle, you can download a FREE app for your computer, phone or tablet RIGHT THERE ON THE AMAZON BUY PAGE. And if you have a NOOK here’s how to download an app so you can get free Kindle books to download to your NOOK. 


And remember, this ebook comes with free updates every six months!

And for you die-hard treeware lovers, the paper book is coming! A little slower than we hoped, but it is in the proofing process. 


Tor those of you who signed up early for our mailing list, we promised we would award a copy of a signed first edition of Catherine Ryan Hyde's iconic novel PAY IT FORWARD to one lucky winner today. So the winner, chosen by the random number generator at random.org is CORA RAMOS!!! Congratulations, Cora!


And further congrats to longtime follower of this blog, children's author Lorie Brallier, who also attended the seminar yesterday--and today was offered representation by the Karen Grenick Literary Agency! Congrats, Lorie! 

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