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| Nice and frosty on my garage window. Canadian winter in Edmonton :) |
I've managed to give the first eleven chapter of Neo Ace a second proof and am having my copy editor do the third reading. Hopefully, I'll get through another ten chapters or so this weekend. Now that the writing for the book is complete I have to think hard about how to promote it.
I like to tell stories but am not a big promoter or PR guy. I understand business and sales though. So here are the steps to producing a book for me.
- You need a product to sell and promote, so the first step is to have a product or products preferably. I've written a short story, a novella, and now a short novel set in my Exocrisis Blue universe. Obviously if you're going to create some serious intellectual property, or a brand, you also need to think up a catchy names and background too.
- So, now that you have a product, you need to have packaging / art. I've already done the cover art for Neo Ace myself. It is passable and looks fairly good, but a professional graphic artist could do better, especially if I had commissioned or licensed some mecha art of the right style. However, this costs $$$ and you really have to think that you'll get your money back. If I was writing romance, I would not hesitate to use a pro artist and pay the $250 to $500 for a pretty good cover. In this genre, there is plenty of stock art and photos to use and the artists know how to use them. For mecha scifi, if you want mecha art, this is HARD. You'll be looking for mecha artists who are not book cover people and the licensing could be expensive. Finding compatible art is also difficult as all mechs are different - not like having a couple kissing or something which is generic. You will need a large cover image that can be shrunk down. Make sure your cover looks good when it is postage stamp sized.
BTW, for mecha SF / military SF in my case, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to get my money back on the cover art. I'd have to sell at least 200 copies at $3 a pop to break even with a little bit of beer money. The artist makes the money here. This genre sells, but unless you're established, have tons or reviews, or a great social network, I don't think you'll get your money back soon.
- Converting your Word document to an ebook. Some people hate Word, but I use it professionally for work and I love the tool despite its idiosyncracies - you won't find a better tool - and simpler is not better). Follow the directions on Amazon to convert it and you won't have too many problems. Keep your formatting simple in this case and check the conversion on multiple ereaders - also watch the font size.
- Finally, your book is ready. I'm assuming you have a KDP account to do direct publishing on Amazon. I haven't tried other ebookstores, but I will eventually. I'm going to have to get ISBN numbers, but this is free in Canada for Canadian authors. Once you set up the account, publishing is pretty straight forward and there are many articles and even instructions on the KDP website.
- This is the hard part for me. I have my blogs (Tokyo Excess, Peter Lok), my Exocrisis Blue facebook page, my Amazon profile page, my twitter feeds, but I can tell you, it isn't moving my books at a terribly fast rate. I'm pretty sure there are more people out there who would like my writing, but I can't reach them right now. So, what do I do to make the best of my situation?
You could pay for advertising like ads on Facebook or Google. This might be a good idea, but it will cost money again. You can try having review sites review your book. Review sites might not look at your book unless you already have reviews and it might cost money or you are in a waiting queue. You could promote it on forums like Reddit, Goodreads, etc., and other blogs. I've read that having many Facebook or Twitter followers is a nice exponential force multiplier - they can get the word out quick, but you need followers in the thousands. It is like 100 or a 1000 sales to one if you have this channel available.
Since I'm in this for the long haul (that is to say years to a decade), I don't have to race on this. Trickle sales will do. Big sales would be great. I'm selling to the long tail, so the long haul only helps me as I sell more books over time. So what is my major tool for promotion? It is my blogs, and enrolment in KDP Select. KDP Select allows me to put my ebook for free for five days for every ninety day period. The downside is that it is exclusive. If you read the Amazon contract carefully, you are not allowed to put a sample chapter anywhere else electronically (you're supposed to link to Amazon instead). So you are stuck on Amazon for three months before you can opt out.
- For my Neo Ace book, I was really wondering if I should use KDP Select for it or my other books. I finally decided that I should use KDP Select at least one more time. My reasoning is as follows:
- I'm only on Amazon, so the exclusive clause is not a big deal.
- What is a big deal is the fact that I would have to remove my Wattpad chapters to comply with the contract terms. I'd leave stubs up to keep the pages alive, but would have to remove the content for the 90 days. Right now, it is just the draft content up there, so I'd put up final copies of the first six chapters after the KDP Select period. If I had 30,000 views on Wattpad this would be a no go, but I don't, so it is okay.
- Giving copies away for free has worked for me in the past to get reviews and downloads. Since nothing is costing me money up front, and my major investment is personal effort, getting read is GOOD. The free promo should sell more books.
- Pricing Strategy. My short story and novella will remain at 99 cents (can't go any lower on Amazon). My ebook will sell at 99 cents for the first month, then go to $2.99 or $3 to infinity and beyond. $3 is a reasonable price for an ebook novel. I have problems myself paying more than $5.99 for an ebook as I keep thinking I'm being ripped off.
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