Category: self publishing news

And now for the news!

This week in the world of self-publishing:

• Three Strategies You Must Use To Pre-Launch Your Self-Published Book

Many people think of writing as the first step to self-publishing, however, Trevor Crane flips this assumption on its head. Crane insists that “you must begin your pre-launch plans before you’ve written one single word.” A best-selling, self-published author himself, Trevor also owns a successful book marketing business “and the publishing companies Bestseller Big Business Publishing and the children’s imprint Super Kids Book Publishing.” Trevor’s daughter could be said to be one of his clients for the latter business, a stunning young girl who published five books in just three months!

Crane’s advice for authors considering the self-publishing route is to do a little reverse engineering and think about “the steps that precede the perceived onset” of actually writing the thing. Some useful tips Trevor provides for authors who want to ‘stay ahead of the pack’ are to first off, make clear what it is you want to promote and write. “Just like you can’t start building a house without a blueprint,” he says, “you can’t write a book until you know who you are writing for and what your marketing plan will look like.” He advises that authors try and step into the mind of the readers and ask yourself who your readers are and how you will advertise to them when your book is complete.

Secondly, Trevor recommends that you get on your social media soapbox and let the world know that you’re writing a book. This serves a dual purpose: one, it keeps you accountable and two, it gets the word out and builds anticipation for your audience. “One of Trevor’s clients sold 25 business sessions at a trade show before she had typed a single sentence”–now that’s effective marketing! She even ended up with a best-seller.

The counter-intuitive last piece of advice is to focus on the story, AFTER you’ve taken pieces of advice 1 and 2. He recommends researching the genre you plan to write in and see what works best, what is most popular and successful. Once you’ve gotten a feel for what works and what doesn’t, what makes top-sellers and what flops, try and craft a formula that will make your story a success. There’s a way in which you can repurpose popular works in a certain genre “in your own fashion, in your own words and with your unique take on your subject,” he says, “Your book should be readable, flow well, and adhere to creative guidelines: vary sentence lengths and set scenes, as an example.”

In his publishing and book marketing businesses, Trevor encounters a lot of authors who don’t like their books because they didn’t take the time to plan ahead before they dove straight into the writing process. Don’t make that mistake. Plan ahead, and plan for success!

---

As a self-publishing author, you may find it helpful to stay up-to-date on the trends and news related to the self-publishing industry. This will help you make informed decisions before, during and after the self-publishing process, which will lead to a greater self-publishing experience. To help you stay current on self-publishing topics, simply visit our blog every Monday to find out the hottest news. If you have other big news to share, please comment below.

---

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.

And now for the news!

This week in the world of self-publishing:

This week we’re going to take a look at self-publishing news from around the world!

• Writer seeks Kindled spirit: Six novelists reveal how to self-publish successfully

In this article, garner some tips from six independent writers were able to make it big in the self-publishing world.

First up, Tracy Bloom, author of No-One Ever Has Sex on a Tuesday, a book which sold over 500,000 ebooks since it’s release in 2013. Tracy wrote this book in 2007, and after not being able to find a single UK publishing company that would pick up her work, she decided to self publish nearly six years later. Her piece ended up being a grand slam, overtaking Dan Brown on the top Kindle UK charts. “Her first three books have since been physically published but her digital sales lead the way (with 250,000 digital copies of her debut novel sold compared to 29,000 in paperback).”

Advice from Tracy? “Think commercial.” She says that the key to her self-publishing success was her ability to study the ways in which people navigate Amazon’s website and get them to stop and look at her work specifically.

Next up: Mel Sheratt, author of Taunting the Dead, which sold over one million ebook copies. That’s right, one million. Mel spent 12 years getting rejected by publishing company after publishing company because of her ‘cross-genre’ writing style which mixes women’s fiction, crime and thriller. “At the end of 2011 she self-released her debut Taunting the Dead which reached No 3 in the Kindle UK fiction chart, topped the police procedurals category and has been downloaded 200,000 times. Mel has written 12 more ebooks – six of which she has published herself.”

Mel’s advice to other self-publishing authors is also based on marketing; she recommends creating a yearly marketing schedule that includes offering your book at different prices throughout the year, that way you can promote your book whenever you’d like.

Janet MacLeod Trotter sold a whopping 800,000 copies of her ebook, The Vanishing of Ruth, a piece of historical fiction she self-published in 2011 after being dropped by her traditional publisher in 2010. Her book rose to number one in the Waterstones crime and romance categories the year she published it. “After the success of her first ebook, she self-published her backlist and now has 22 books to her name. The Tea Planter’s Daughter was one of the top ten bestsellers of 2012 for a self-published author.”

Janet’s advice for self-publishing authors is to constantly revamp their book covers, recommending that you “give your books a new look every so often.” After all, a lot of people will be judging your book by its cover. 😉

Rachael Lucas was able to sell over 150,000 ebook copies of her debut young adult novel, The State of Grace Sometimes Means Fitting in and Standing Out. This was a book Rachel wrote in three months “as a challenge” to herself to “see what might happen.” What happened was that she quickly rose to Amazon’s best seller’s chart.

Rachel’s advice to first-time self-publishing authors is: “Set yourself a writing target,” she says, “‘Signing up to NaNoWriMo – [National Novel Writing Month] a worldwide challenge where anyone is encouraged to write a novel in a month – gave me a time-frame and daily word target, and made starting a book much less daunting. Having written 50,000 words in 30 days, it didn’t seem too much of a challenge to finish writing my first novel.’”

---

As a self-publishing author, you may find it helpful to stay up-to-date on the trends and news related to the self-publishing industry. This will help you make informed decisions before, during and after the self-publishing process, which will lead to a greater self-publishing experience. To help you stay current on self-publishing topics, simply visit our blog every Monday to find out the hottest news. If you have other big news to share, please comment below.

---

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.

And now for the news!

This week in the world of self-publishing:

This week we’re going to take a look at self-publishing news from around the world!

• Self-publishing the way to go for new Kiwi authors

This article focuses on the self-publishing journey of Grew Fowler whose work, Jam Sandwiches, tells a touching story of an abandoned boy with Down Syndrome “and the lives he touches as he navigates his way through life.” After receiving rejection letter after rejection letter, Jam Sandwiches was originally something that Fowler published online through Amazon’s CreateSpace– this is an easy process where you fill out a questionnaire, talk with a design consultant, and then a few weeks later your books arrive on your doorstep. After growing up reading a lot of Stephen King, Fowler found comfort in the fact that King had wallpapered his writing room with rejection letters and decided to press ahead, carving his own path.

Lucky for Fowler, his book was eventually caught the eye of a leading publishing company in the UK and will be “formally launched this year at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August – one of the world’s leading arts festivals,” after being translated into other languages.

Because self-publishing is still a fairly unheard of concept in New Zealand, Fowler acts as a sort of a pioneer, and perhaps an outlier as far as self-publishing goes in the country. Being picked up by a publishing company has been humbling for the author, who “maintains he just got lucky.” The challenge of writing something that is widely liked by a reading audience and that also catches the eye of a publishing house is grand. Most of us would be happy with just the former, and ecstatic with the latter. All we can do is put our work out there by whatever means we have available and see what happens.

• Self publishing is opening the door for new authors

In India, if a child said they wanted to be an author when they grew up just fifteen years ago, that would’ve most likely been a statement to be met by chagrin by their parents. However, with the emergence of self-publishing companies in India such as Power Publishers, becoming an author has become a more acceptable career choice that is being taken more seriously today.

“Just fifteen years ago, a new writer with the aspiration to become an author, or start a career in writing would have found a solid wall before her,” says Pinaki Ghosh, founder of Power Publishers, “It was practically impossible for a new author to publish a book in India.” In 2010, however, everything changed when digital printing became an option in the country. While traditional publishing companies in India were previously only willing to pick up books they could sell 5,000+ copies of, digital printing meant that first time authors were able to get 50 or less of their books published, meaning less risk for the publishing companies and authors.

Digital printing has equalized the playing field for writers in India and opened the door for self-publishing as an avenue for talented writers to get their work exposed and see if they can get picked up by a publishing company or successfully market their book and build a fanbase of their own.

---

As a self-publishing author, you may find it helpful to stay up-to-date on the trends and news related to the self-publishing industry. This will help you make informed decisions before, during and after the self-publishing process, which will lead to a greater self-publishing experience. To help you stay current on self-publishing topics, simply visit our blog every Monday to find out the hottest news. If you have other big news to share, please comment below.

---

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.

And now for the news!

This week in the world of self-publishing:

• How to make a living as an author without a publisher: ‘Dig out old manuscripts that publishers or agents didn’t want’

Best-selling author, Dean Crawford, started writing adventure novels in his teens. However, he always thought that a career as a writer was a long shot for him, so he ended up working as a graphic designer, writing screenplays on the side.

Deciding to take a six month hiatus from writing to study the book market, Crawford decided he had an idea of how to write a bestseller. In 2005, Crawford mimicked the writing style of Dan Brown and was able to land himself a $350,000 book deal with Simon and Schuster. Needless to say, becoming a full-time writer after this was no longshot, but rather, a reality. All of the books in his three part series were best sellers which secured him a six-figure paycheck for his next two books. These books didn’t sell as well as his three part series, which led Crawford to his decision to reanalyse the book market once again.

In 2013, Crawford caught on to the growing popularity of digital publishing and founded his own publishing label, Fictum. To date, he has published 19 novels on that label. A frequenter on the Top #100 Paid on the Amazon.com list, Crawford has become a huge proponent of self-publishing.

He says, “For authors struggling under contracts with publishing houses, independent publishing is a real opportunity for them, not a second best alternative. They shouldn’t be afraid to dig out old manuscripts that their publishers or agents didn’t want, dust them off, edit them and self-publish on Amazon and other digital platforms. It’s their material, and the 70 per cent royalty rate offered by digital vendors dwarfs the 12.5 per cent of a typical publishing contract.”

Rather than waiting on advances from different publishing houses that may or may not take on his books, Crawford is now in a position where he has a loyal fan base and is able to move 20,000 copies of his books in a few short months without the aid of traditional publishers. He has removed the variable–whether or not a publisher will pick up his book–and found a formula for success that pays him far more handsomely.

“Since I made the move, I’ve seen more and more traditionally published authors forced back into day jobs because they can’t make ends meet,” says Crawford, “At the same time, I’ve seen more and more independent authors leaving their day jobs to go full time as writers and achieve their dream. They’re not household names, but they number in their hundreds and thousands across the world.” Luckily for his readers, Crawford didn’t allow himself to get forced back into day jobs, but asked himself how he could work with the market and have the market work for him. This kind of intuition and attention to the grand scheme of things is something we can all learn from as self-published writers who are also in charge of the marketing of our own books. Sometimes we need to step back and see what is made popular by demand and how we can adjust our writing and marketing schemes accordingly.

---

As a self-publishing author, you may find it helpful to stay up-to-date on the trends and news related to the self-publishing industry. This will help you make informed decisions before, during and after the self-publishing process, which will lead to a greater self-publishing experience. To help you stay current on self-publishing topics, simply visit our blog every Monday to find out the hottest news. If you have other big news to share, please comment below.

---

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.

And now for the news!

This week in the world of self-publishing:

• ‘It’s no longer about the vanity press’: self-publishing gains respect — and sales

“According to data gathering website Author Earnings, self-published novels now make up 42 per cent of the fiction book market, offered via distributors like Kindle, Kobo, and niche websites like Smashwords,” according to this CBC news article by Maryse Zeidler. 42% is a pretty significant chunk of the fiction book market, considering what a niche, almost frowned upon practice self publishing once was; it now almost seems…mainstream. Public libraries across Canada are even going so far as to promote collections of self-published authors!

Because of how prolific self-published books have become, the cost for the readers can be very small, allowing them to try out authors they’ve never heard of without very much risk. This is good for authors who are just starting out and need to slowly gather a fan base. Zeidler points out that this also allows for a vast array of genres like “science fiction, mysteries and thrillers, not to mention ultra-niche genres like steampunk or even dinosaur erotica.”

The stigma around self-publishing has not disappeared, as there are some poor quality things that do get published. However, there is a rising number of professional authors who are putting out high quality material and offsetting that stigma and sometimes even becoming best sellers!

• Self-Publish The Bestseller Inside Of You: A How-To

This is an absolutely fabulous and entertaining article by James Altucher, a successful self-published author, in which he gives all the reasons he has decided to self publish.

First on his list? Speed. Althucher once challenged himself to write and publish a small novel…in a weekend. He successfully did so and published it on Amazon under a pseudonym almost simply because doing so would’ve been unthought of even just a few decades ago. Six months is the normal time frame James will take on one of his books, which is still unthought of if he were to go through a traditional publisher who would want outlines, drafts, etc over a span of most likely one to two years. “Another friend of mine publishes a book every two or three months. Another friend writes fantasy novels –maybe two or three a month,” he says, “He’s sold over two million copies of his books. All through self-publishing.”

Second on his list is control. Now that the best designers and editors have discovered that freelancing is more profitable, that’s what they do, and that means anyone who wants to publish a book can hire them. For James, the cost of hiring the best freelance writers is well beyond worth it, as he prizes his readers more than money and knows that a well designed book will sell infinitely more copies.

Another reason he gives is that you don’t need permission to write a book anymore. “You don’t need to be a good writer,” he says, “You don’t need to have a good story. You don’t need to have anything to say.” He finds a beauty in this. Writing has now become an artistic act available to any/everyone. Self-publishing being the great equalizer.

Money is an oft-cited reason by many successful published authors, but James cites some pretty staggering figures from his traditional published earnings -vs- his self-published earnings. The maximum figure he gave from traditional publishing was $100,000, and his current self-published novel has made him between $300 and $400,000.

I’d go on, but you should really read the list yourself. He’s curt, to the point, and a hoot to read. He’ll make you want to go out and hug a stranger or publish a book this weekend on Amazon.

---

As a self-publishing author, you may find it helpful to stay up-to-date on the trends and news related to the self-publishing industry. This will help you make informed decisions before, during and after the self-publishing process, which will lead to a greater self-publishing experience. To help you stay current on self-publishing topics, simply visit our blog every Monday to find out the hottest news. If you have other big news to share, please comment below.

---

ABOUT KELLY SCHUKNECHT: Kelly Schuknecht is the Executive Vice President of Outskirts Press. In addition to her contributions to the Outskirts Press blog at blog.outskirtspress.com, Kelly and a group of talented marketing experts offer book marketing services, support, and products to not only published Outskirts Press authors, but to all authors and professionals who are interested in marketing their books and/or careers. Learn more about Kelly on her blog, kellyschuknecht.com.