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[Talanic]

Some few of you might remember when I put my book up on a blog for editing and critique.  Well, that time is over.  I finally decided it was time to put the book on the Kindle.

How's it gone so far?  As far as actual sales, I've made $4.  After those two sales occurred, I exercised my option to flag the book as free for this weekend.  As of right now, it has been given away over two hundred times.

If anyone's interested, there's the link.  Still free until the end of Sunday - although since it's a holiday weekend here in the States I might extend it by a day.

It's the tale of a pacifistic cyborg stranded on a post-apocalyptic fantasy Earth.

[MrWiggles]

Why does it take nerve to self publish?

What have you done to market yourself?

Why did you choose to only publish through Amazon instead of the plethora of other e-publication sights?

[Talanic]

It takes nerve because I always half-expect to get my story thrown in my face by people who don't like it.  Because I don't trust my own judgment as far as whether or not it's good.

I've got a local marketing campaign starting up and a few other ideas.  And I'm only on Amazon because Amazon does promotions if you give 'em 90 day exclusivity.  After that 90 days, I can pursue other paths.

[penguinofhonor]

Hm, 200 downloads? Even without making money off it, that's a pretty decent amount of people. Hopefully that'll turn into some free advertising for you later.

[Mephisto]

Cory Doctorow seems to do all of his publishing electronically now (Google if you don't know who he is).

I'm speaking from memory, but he has the following to say on the matter:

If you go to a publishing house, they take >90% of what your books earn and then wait months before paying you your pittance.
Free ebooks are great. Some people download them and then never read them. Some people download them and that provides enough incentive to buy a copy from you. The only truly lost sales are in the minority who download and then use that free copy as a reason to never buy your book.

[MrWiggles]

Cory Doctorow seems to do all of his publishing electronically now (Google if you don't know who he is).

I'm speaking from memory, but he has the following to say on the matter:

If you go to a publishing house, they take >90% of what your books earn and then wait months before paying you your pittance.
Free ebooks are great. Some people download them and then never read them. Some people download them and that provides enough incentive to buy a copy from you. The only truly lost sales are in the minority who download and then use that free copy as a reason to never buy your book.

If nots over 90%. Knock it off with the hyperbole.

[GlyphGryph]

90% of the gross, maybe. But a great many paper books actually have pretty thin margins, so that wouldn't be too bad a deal.

[JanusTwoface]

As another aspiring Bay 12 author looking into self-publishing, how did it go? Any gotchas / problems with putting it up on Amazon?

Also, did you go for the Kindle Select program or just directly publishing it?

(Also also, your sample chapter has me intrigued. I may have to pick this up when I have a bit more time to actually read. It's on my Goodreads list at the very least.)

[Talanic]

As far as royalties, it depends on the company.  Harlequin is currently in trouble - apparently its standard royalty agreement is 50%, but they were marking their books down to twelve cents each, selling them to another Harlequin-owned company, and reselling them for full price. 

Most other companies understand that it's not wise to pluck your golden goose.  Still, my mentor in college got completely hosed over by three different publishers - one that dropped her entirely because she took a year off to get her doctorate, one that didn't really market her series, and one who never properly gave her the royalties they owed her.  She's currently with Baen, which has been good enough that she went full-time writer.

The self-publishing has gone okay for me so far.  I've only got four sales to speak of, but I kind of expected it - I'm a complete unknown.  I enrolled in the KDP select program, so I had to take down my blog with the story archived in it.  I also can't give the book away as a reward on Kickstarter, but since my possible Kickstarter is months away in design, that's not likely to conflict.

The process was really easy.

[mendonca]

This looks great.

I'm going to wait until the free period is over, and then buy this so you might get a chance of getting some royalties.

I have also recently self-published, I'm currently pitching my price at .99c (plus tax) which I don't think is a particularly good idea in hindsight, but my view is based on trying to get people to buy it and read it on a whim, as I am also unknown. Long term I will get that bumped up to the more typical $3.99 point, but I am thinking I will wait until I have published my second book. It may even be of detriment to me that my price is so low (perceived as a piece of junk, which hopefully it isn't).

I have 5 sales, of which I can account for every single one in friends and family.

I'm quite happy with this really (well, you know, sorta), given performance of similar authors, and hopefully in a couple of years I will have two or three books in my name and maybe even people will start to like my style on a wider basis

Did you try the traditional route at all?

Snowbooks take unsolicited manuscripts (they rejected mine, of course), and I really liked the cut of their jib, but I don't have I'm not willing to spend the time or the energy outside 'normal' work and life to engage with agents or people that I don't want to engage with.

I'm finding it difficult to understand where I can generate a market for the book, and am resigned to the slow and steady approach. I accept this is limited in its chance of success, but perhaps when I have a bit more free time I can pontificate more, and perhaps start to spend time doing this. I'm very interested in watching this thread to see how you get on.

What's the 'free promotion' process? I'll admit I didn't really understand this, although put my name down for KDP select as well, and kind of picked up that there was something there that I could do.

I have a thought that entering short story competitions could be an interesting furrow to plough to generate interest.

Link to my book

(I actually wrote this book after engaging in a 'world building' thread on Bay12, so this forum had a big hand in this)

Good luck getting an audience, anyway

[Talanic]

Free period is over, actually - although there'll be another one on September 13th.  Why?  I'm getting married that day.

I also have five sales at this point.  Once I have the second book out, I'll make the first book available for free again.

I tried a bit at submitting to agents but found the same thing was true - I don't have the time, emotional fortitude, or energy to try sending it off to dozens of agents in the hope that one will find it in the piles in their inbox and think "Yeah, this'll do."

You can mark your book as free since you're in KDP select.  It lasts for up to five days total (don't have to be consecutive) - check your Promotions Manager on your KDP page.  Make sure your description is polished though; I noticed a grammatical error (the Academy are) and if I noticed, others will probably have a problem with it. 

Anyway.  I hope I've addressed your questions but at the moment it's 3:45 AM and I only recently got home from work.  Thinky-thing no work good.

[JanusTwoface]

Just my two cents, but you should really see if you can get a decent looking cover. The simple two tone thing that's up now is better than the blank white box from a few days ago, but as the first thing that most people look at, it's somewhere you want to make an impact. On the flip side though, there's the time / effort to get that working too, so YMMV.

And a question: How is Amazon about editing after you've submitted it? Is the version you submit the final version or is there some wiggle room?

[mendonca]

I noticed a grammatical error (the Academy are) and if I noticed, others will probably have a problem with it. 

Huh, good spot. Thanks!

[Talanic]

I am horrific at the visual arts.  Until I find someone willing to make a cover / something in my price range (somewhere between jack and squat), it's going to keep the simple cover, which was apparently automatically generated by Amazon.

It allows me to submit edits, which apparently take a day or two to clear.  Also, I've collected a second review up there, which is cool.

[tootboot]

Why did you choose to only publish through Amazon instead of the plethora of other e-publication sights?

You can probably cover 90% of the eBook market just publishing on Amazon and iBooks.