What I learned in Fifteen Years of Publishing on Kindle

 I belong to a group on FB for authors supporting authors. Every day I read posts. I see the hope of new writers and the struggles. I don’t comment because some posts get so many comments. I buy books from them quietly.

That group inspired me to share my story for anyone who wants to know about my publishing journey. And give some tips.

In the month of December, I celebrate fifteen years of being published on Kindle. My first kindle was published December 21, 2015. I remember the first royalty check of $33.00. I bought a pizza for my family.

When I started there were only 750,000 Kindle Books. Back then most of us did our own covers and you could pick out a self-published author by the cover and price. Some of mine were downright awful. Take a look at the first. I’m surprised I wasn’t run out of town.

There was a love and hate for self-published authors then. A lot of readers rallied around us because they were getting good stories at an affordable rate. They remained faithful.

I remain faithful to them.

Back then it was cutthroat. One bad review would tank your book. Competing authors knew this and would put torpedo reviews to hurt your sales.

I watched it grow to the six million books out there today. It’s harder now, but I am dedicated to my readers and grateful more than they know. I love them and know many of them personally now.

I still love getting an email telling me how much someone loved my book, and there are days I get some not so nice ones. I appreciate their honesty.

I went from a single mother standing in line at a foodbank to supporting my family with my passion for writing. You will never hear me tear down Amazon, because Amazon gave my unpublished work a platform.

Before KDP, I tried traditional publishers and was rejected because of the books I wrote. I have a bin with 1,172 rejection letters for my books, poems and screenplays. I was relentless, but I was getting nowhere. Fifteen years ago, on the advice of a friend to take a gamble with ebooks, my life changed.

It took a couple years to gain traction, but I did.

Granted, there are ups and downs. Good years and bad ones. Like when Covid hit, no one wanted to read end of the world books because they were living it. Many of my peers shifted gears. I didn’t. I plugged away.

Many new authors have written to me asking for advice, I freely give it and am always happy to help.

I am not an A list writer, or even B. Maybe C, but if I were to offer tips to new writers here’s what they’d be. 

• Advertise. You have to spend money to make money. Even if it’s a $15 Awesome Gang Book ad. They work.  Here is a report (Poor Man's Guide to Advertising) I did five years ago on many different affordable advertising. Tried and tested but some may no longer be valid.
• A good cover is important, one that stands out on a thumbnail. Canva is a great tool if you can’t afford an artist and don’t know photoshop. It doesn’t need to be elaborate.
• Have a sale and do giveaways on your website. Again, this is advertising,
• Connect with your readers, get to know them. If you are struggling to find readers join a FB book group that is similar to what you write. Get to know the people there. But don’t self promote in these groups. Allow them to find your work organically by knowing you.
• A great story and one well written will keep your readers turning to you for what is next. Of course, not all books will be great, even if we loved writing them.
• Don’t be afraid to give a book or two away. Word of mouth can not be beat. I relied heavily on grassroots in the beginning. Also, readers know when you’re genuine and you’re not. I give a lot of books away because sometimes readers can’t afford to buy a book.
• If you aren’t part of Kindle Select and KU, you’re missing out.
• Kindle Create is FREE and Formats your book.
• And finally, don’t give up. Keep writing!

If I were to define writer success as the ability to have people read your stories, then I have succeeded. When I first started, that was all I really wanted. People to read my stuff. As writers we love what we do, driven by storytelling and not financial gain. Write to be read not to be sold. Be real, get the word out and readers will come.

 

 

 

Lessons Learned as a Self Published Writer

There are days I absolutely love being a writer. The energy of a story blasting in your mind, driving in the car, getting so lost in writing thoughts, you get lost on the road. There are days I loathe it. The days where the negative, well-intentioned criticism test the thickness of your skin. Which, by the way, doesn’t really ever get thick. You think it, it’s not. 

As indy or self published writers, unless you are fortunate, you don’t make a lot of money. Even if you do, it’s short lived. I belong to a FB group that goes by the premise if you write 20 books, you can make 50k. However, they leave out the fact that you don’t stop there, you have to write twenty more. Back when Kindle first started, this would work, the average life span of a book was 4-6 months, depending on how long it took for it to sell. It had a great shelf life. Now, with Unlimited, readers hungrily devoured books, more authors were popping them out like my kids pop out babies. The life span shrunk down to ninety days. Also, unlike in the past, if your book nosedives that first week, you can just focus on the next book. Sometimes, even with all the ads, you get lost in the shuffle of algorithms and people paying top dollar for their amazon ad to appear first.

Those of us who keep our books priced low, just can’t afford that top tier advertising. With book covers and ads we do, we average $1000 in the hole when we release. That’s a lot of money to get back in non guaranteed 90 day window of sales. 

Editing

Then, the elephant in the room … editing. Granted, the positive is the 95% of readers who will not say much about a typo, those darlings say, ‘Oh, errors are even the big houses.’ But for how wonderful those people are, the few that breakthrough will cut you like a ten inch blade.

Do these people stop to think we DO know the difference between their and there, our fingers just type the wrong thing. We’re not idiots, as I have been called.

Maybe it’s me that gets the rash of emails right after any new release does well, people telling me how bad it is, or people trying to offer services. Hell, people don’t wait for that. They slam me anyhow.

First, I have paid for editing. In 2007, I took out a loan to have a book edited for $2300. To date, that beautifully edited book has made $138.16.

I never thought I’d sell my apocalypse books. I did. And that brought the onslaught of negative reviews and reality of publishing. I had books professionally edited. I hired one of the best in the business right now. And you know what? People STILL left negative reviews about editing. Which often has me wondering if editing is subjective.

The well intentioned email that says horrible things veiled in a bad attempt to word it nicely, often match the negative review they left. Okay, so blasting my book publicly wasn’t enough you had to email me as well? Hammer it in, yeah, I know, I suck.

Then you have those who offer to help. Mentioning help and possibly they have a lot of time on their hands.

As nice as this seems, before you accept … heed my advice … vet them. 

I have two wonderful women who help me and have for years, we finally got it down or at least close. I have had wonderful people in the past help me. I am eternally grateful to any and all, without them I wouldn’t be where I am. But not once, has this happened.

The Trap I fell into …

KDP introduced the Quality Assurance Warning program. Readers report an error, then after several you get a warning and your amazon book page gets a hazard symbol. A hazard symbol. Yes, actually it’s free editing, but it takes time to do and re-upload and usually it’s a book that stopped selling. Usually . Maybe the hazard symbol did that.

So, shortly after they introduced it, I got a particularly stinging email about my editing from a person. That same person sent a near similar email two months later, then third nasty email offered help and said they’d do it. I will call them NP (New proofer) I went in to ‘put your money where your mouth is’, everyone is an expert editor until they do it and get bad reviews.

About the time of the second nasty email from NP, I started getting daily quality assurance notices (This was before weekly notices).

This person proofed a book for me, did okay, my main lady then found a ton that were missed. Of course, that’s why you have it read through at least five times. But NP would send emails asking for older books, because NP spotted errors. I asked every time if NP was sure, and the reply, “I’m bored and retired and lots of time.”

I had that you know, gut feeling about NP, but ignored it. Six months later, of NP helping my team, I get message and NP said, “I think you need to start paying me for all the work I do for you. I am on SS and need a new monitor.”

I replied that I would do the best I could, but Covid killed my income. Okay I was getting free help, I get it and I was happy to give NP something, never did NP say anything about it before. I got busy and a couple days later, I get a nasty message saying., ‘well, I guess I mean nothing. I was going to charge you only 20.00 a book but now I won’t take less than 50.’

So, I paid NP $50 and two weeks later sent the new book for the first pass before I sent it to others. Then I posted the cover I made and was met with tough criticism publicly from NP. A reader jumped to my defense and an hour later, another message from NP complaining that I only paid for one book, meaning NP wanted backpay. My reply was professional, end result, NP said ‘goodbye and good riddance.’

Now … back to Amazon Quality Assurance. Between NP’s second nasty email to me and the time NP started helping, I received 49 Quality Assurance warnings mainly from older books. During the six months NP helped, I received 2. Was NP the culprit of the mass reports? I don’t know. I like to believe not and it was a coincidence they stopped. Now I’m left to wonder if they’ll start again.

Bottom line, when you charge 2.99 a book, pay for a cover, ads, and like me, Uncle Sam, those offers of free help are wonderful. Sometimes the help becomes friendships that are immeasurable and sometimes, free as it seems recently, it comes with a price. Leaving me feeling bad, guilty and cheap all rolled into one ball.

I could pay for top editing, and charge more for the book, but as I learned through experience with my publisher, it doesn't make you more money, you just lose the sales and only get page reads, hence, about the same amount of money and less new readers and more people that see the price and say, "I'll pass".

I blame myself for what happens to me, if people see me badly, that's on me. Plus, any changes won't help. There's no help for me. I'm the old dog that pissed on the carpet one too many times. People now look for the wet spot on the floor. However, maybe this blog will stop someone from making my mistakes.

The Great Marketing Challenge

As with most Indy authors, sales are important. When I first started to publish through Kindle, I checked my sales stats hourly, then daily. Now I barely check them, unless I have a new release or an ad campaign running.

It makes me neurotic. It makes me crazy. Why isn’t it selling. I spend hours re-evaluating my story, cover, price … you name it.

I depend on sales. I am very blessed and fortunate to be able to make a living off of writing. While it is an extreme budgeted living, I am still blessed. I tried working a part time job, a few hours a day. Although it didn’t cut into my writing time (I allow nothing to do that), it did however cut into my exposure time. The time I spent getting out there, spreading the word, reading and reviewing. And in turn, that showed in my sales. It proved to me that being a fulltime writer, doesn’t just entail a full time writing schedule, but a full time marketing schedule as well.

To make money you have to spend money and I firmly believe that. However, most of my ‘go to’ ad sites have strict guidelines, and the book has to have X amount of reviews. Here we are in a catch 22, it takes a while to get those reviews. By the time I get them, the book is selling.

It’s frustrating, after a few months of part time work and a new found appreciation for my hours again, I am going to experiment with marketing. I’ll post results of my efforts frequently, in hopes that my efforts can help other authors.

What I have planned will take effort and time, not to mention a little money. Not much money, because I am going to assume that all authors who try this are on an extreme budget as well.

Specials!

Once a week post a sneak peek at one of my novels and run a three day special on that novel. So Fridays are free peek days. I get a few hundreds hits every time I post a sneak peek, yet I have not tapped into that for sales. That’s my bad.

Odd Gift Giveaways.

I accredit my daughter for this one. At the end of each month, I will do the giveaway blog. Anyone who leaves a comment will be entered in a drawing. They will receive a nifty gift (And not one of my books, they can have a book if they want in addition) But the gift will be good for anyone. Authors give away book, this author will give away a toaster or something like that.

Book Ads and Press Releases

This will take a while to see the results. I have my  ‘go to’ ad places, but they cost upwards of  $175. So what if for me and others, I located low cost ads. Look for the ten dollar bargain bin. Who knows. If one $200 ad can yield $400 in sales, then maybe I can make that strategy work with lesser ads. But I am still researching for those places.

Twitter

Yeah, yeah, I know. But I don’t use this much. So, I’m gonna do a hashtag experiment. Instead of the annoying ‘buy my book’,  every hour or so, I’ll see what’s trending and post something witty or insightful about it, then comment on three people’s hashtag about it.  My hopeful results, more followers, more retweets, and more chance of that weekly sneak peak not being ignored.

So that’s my strategy. Will I stick to it? Who knows.  It’ll take some work, but it’s work I can do on the go and while cooking dinner.

Keep you posted.