I'm going to write that book, baby.

[Selfy]

July numbers are in -- I think? This is my third month in this venture.

Last time i'll talk about sales.

Sales comes in about the same as amount-displayed-on-my-rep-bank ATM. Which leads me to conclude: the more post on FLM forum the higher the sales.

<--- approx that number

I still don't know the deal with the borrows. But I had a day with 80 borrows.

Highlights

- Made a foray into erotica. Wrote three books super fast (+6 days) in three themes. One book, I just got so pissed off that nobody bought it at launch that I put it on the KDP free watchamacullit. First time I dabbled in it. Got 100 dls in a day which translates to what exactly? Fish and chips. I think i'll finish the other books I have off erotica and go back to the bread and butter.

- I should be happy but I'm not. I realize how much of a slog this will actually be. I'm thinking i'll need way more than HFR to get the same income.

Cue Bruno Mars music: I wanna be a millionaire so frikking bad



- Sales never dropped less than five? wahoooo. So yeah. I wanna get my book count to 20 by the end of August. There seems to be an upward trend. Whether it materializes or if I can sustain it is the suspense/thriller part of this progress thread.

- I'm actually a pretty fast writer, which was something I knew before starting this venture. But now I am starting to see how quality must be incorporated with the speed. And I have a plan.

- Started an amazon scraper project (which ill develop myself time-permitting) [php+mysql]

- Hopefully things improve A WHOLE LOT WHOLE LOT. This is hardwurk -- if you're thinking about entering this, realize it aint gon b ec.

Maybe I should have bought a 3D printer and churned prototypes instead of books.. nahhhh. We'll all get there eventually.

 

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[Selfy]

I'm writing my 18th book.

What the heck right? Yeah I'm surprised of that too. But a bulk of them were super short erotica books, which although sold, were nothing compared to my paranormal romance.

Still, I am highly intrigued by erotica, and it serves as an awesome way to refine my writing.

My writing has gotten steadily better, but still not great. For example, name an emotion and i can give you an approximate body gesture to convey it. My sex vocabulary had increased leaps and bounds.

I have identified myself as a 60% seat of pants writer (ie. master blasting with words). But maybe it's because I can never get the plotting thing right? Either way. I have a general guideline of where the book is going.

I'm not going to be pulling HFR numbers even if I hit 33 books, that to me, is now certain. I don't think ill even get close to 15k at the 33rd book.

I will be outsourcing my first book. Gulp. Based on that, I'll decide if I'll go crazy with outsourcing or whatnot. As much as I find writing therapeutic, it's a big drain on time and energy.

The borrows figure finally comes out in two days! I'm predicting i'll get .15 per borrow. I can't wait bc I have a lot of borrows.

At this point 4months 18books out, you get some "data" from past sales, and a 'feel' of why something didn't sell. I've gotten better at photoshop. I can create a cover in a short time based on what the market expects. If I notice something wrong, i'll flip the cover and test -- how much can you do that with fiverr order? This is CONTROL.

I might be the guy who churns up 100 books. Bc I think i'm 1/3 the writer that HFR is, so 33 x 3 = 99 approx 100 until I see results. OMFG.

Here's another thing I learned: I spent too much time writing when I should have been spending more time on Market Research.

 

[Mattie]

You'll figure it out.

 

[Selfy]

"Let me out the airlock please."

You'll figure it out.

This writing venture made me read a real fiction book. Something I never do. It's called Wool.

Business, or trying to make it in the fast lane, is like being in the world of Wool, an underground Silo. You gotta believe that the outside world is a possibility, but to really know if it's a possibility, you must be willing to give up everything to know the truth. You must want it bad enough.

I guess everyone in this fastlane quest is in an adventure of their lives. We've been told that its possible. Now we gotta believe that it's possible and take risks and make things happen.

Banging book. I'm getting part two.

 

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[Mattie]

Very true...Did you believe or ever doubt you would be a success. Yes, because you don't believe until you've experienced the taste of success. A little bit of success here to here, and what kind of feedback you're getting from readers. The feedback reinforces whether you're reaching your readers, whether they relate too it, whether they get anything out of it. Followers and how many views are misleading. When you get direct feedback you know you're on to something or you're not. That is just my experience.

 

[gregarious18]

I'm writing my 18th book.

What the heck right? Yeah I'm surprised of that too. But a bulk of them were super short erotica books, which although sold, were nothing compared to my paranormal romance.

Still, I am highly intrigued by erotica, and it serves as an awesome way to refine my writing.

My writing has gotten steadily better, but still not great. For example, name an emotion and i can give you an approximate body gesture to convey it. My sex vocabulary had increased leaps and bounds.

I have identified myself as a 60% seat of pants writer (ie. master blasting with words). But maybe it's because I can never get the plotting thing right? Either way. I have a general guideline of where the book is going.

I'm not going to be pulling HFR numbers even if I hit 33 books, that to me, is now certain. I don't think ill even get close to 15k at the 33rd book.

I will be outsourcing my first book. Gulp. Based on that, I'll decide if I'll go crazy with outsourcing or whatnot. As much as I find writing therapeutic, it's a big drain on time and energy.

The borrows figure finally comes out in two days! I'm predicting i'll get .15 per borrow. I can't wait bc I have a lot of borrows.

At this point 4months 18books out, you get some "data" from past sales, and a 'feel' of why something didn't sell. I've gotten better at photoshop. I can create a cover in a short time based on what the market expects. If I notice something wrong, i'll flip the cover and test -- how much can you do that with fiverr order? This is CONTROL.

I might be the guy who churns up 100 books. Bc I think i'm 1/3 the writer that HFR is, so 33 x 3 = 99 approx 100 until I see results. OMFG.

Here's another thing I learned: I spent too much time writing when I should have been spending more time on Market Research.

Have you done bundles by series or a related theme like "cheating Wives" or Selfy's Erotica bundle for your first 15 stories and put links to the other 3 books in the back matter. Are you in Google Play, BN, Apple, Kobo, Allromanceebooks, smashwords?

Not many people have the drive to pump out 18 short stories.

 

[Selfy]

Have you done bundles by series or a related theme like "cheating Wives" or Selfy's Erotica bundle for your first 15 stories and put links to the other 3 books in the back matter. Are you in Google Play, BN, Apple, Kobo, Allromanceebooks, smashwords?

Not many people have the drive to pump out 18 short stories.

The bundles. Yeah, i have some. And it's like printing money. I even figured out how to make the 3D boxed-set graphic.

I am NOT IN ANY of those other platforms yet. I'm just on Amazon. Thanks for kicking me in the a$$ to get on those other ones.

 

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[gregarious18]

The bundles. Yeah, i have some. And it's like printing money. I even figured out how to make the 3D boxed-set graphic.

I am NOT IN ANY of those other platforms yet. I'm just on Amazon. Thanks for kicking me in the a$$ to get on those other ones.

I love bundles: you take 10 minutes to set them up, I write a simple description (add the titles of each book), raise the price, and put it up and it counts as a new release. I can't do the 3d graphic, I use one of the titles cover and make sure the title mentions it is a boxset or bundle.

Anyone who does short stories should maximize their efforts with bundles that make sense. I have one bundle for my first 13 stories that is 9.99 (saves buyers $17) I get a few sales for that on Amazon and GP. Hopefully, they buy more books with the back matter links.

 

[Selfy]

Where the hell is this girl?

I forgot to add. If anytime this venture nets me $1k a month, i'll be approaching the most intimidating girl here in this cafe.

She's intimidating because she's uber-pretty. She comes in here with her kid sister. I think I she's a med student bc I saw a stethoscope peering from her bag.

So to make it interesting, she's going to have a special place when this venture succeeds. I'm not going to stop until she goes out with me. And I can be pretty persuasive guy. She will love me. But that's after I make this goal so this love story may not happen anytime soon.

The borrow income had popped me over 1k for July.

Ah! Ah! Ah! I cannot believe it!!

 

[Selfy]

Her name is Jessica.

I'm now writing book 19. I want to write up to 20 by the end of August. I still have lots of borrows so I'm confident (if borrows doesn't change payments) that I'll get the same income.

It's not about the sales. It's about the borrows.

I suppose because I took massive action that I benefited from that borrow deal program. Either way, this business model is now on evolution.

When I get to twenty books. I will produce at 5:1 ratio, which is ME five books and OUTSOURCE one book, with the goal of getting to 1:5. Which means, I have to start managing people and putting time into that as opposed to concentrating in the writing.

This DOG is going WOLF! Ladies love this. Realize, I AM this.

 

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[Selfy]

They say in entrepreneurship, one should bottle the days of success to withstand the days of failure. The above wolf post was during a day that I saw my first 1k. I will never forget that day. Fast forward to now and i'm still at it. I've had a lot of similar days, but a lot more days of failure.

I've pivoted into the outsource model and reached new heights. This model has its pros and cons. The outsource model is not the end-all answer, and is actually a SHITLOAD of work to implement. But there is money there, if you know how to write yourself.

Thus, I push forward. I started writing again. My recent work had gotten a 4 out of 5, which tells me that I must have done something right. There's a small email list that I'm looking to build. The idea is to run both outsource and writing in tandem. Using each other to develop more of my skills as a writer publisher.

I've not reached a peak in this business, nor am I close to it. But mano y mano, I am a now a legit player in this sphere. It gets lonely though.

Observations:

Outsource model is more business. I truly like it. From outsource model, I develop the skills of a business man. I feel more of an entrepreneur.

Writing is time draining, but ultimately, a necessary component of running the outsource model. Can't make cake if you can't operate a stove. This is the bread and butter of fiction publishing.

 

[Selfy]

Swarms and Battleships and Publishing.

An allegory of my publishing business.

The swarms are just as important as the battleship. Raise an army of swarms to protect the ship, concentrate the battleship's blast, and give it ample time to recharge.

--

Welcome to the College of Fictionry!

I think I might have given the impression that I was a decent writer. To clarify, I am decent compared to the garbage I was producing when I first started. Yes, those were garbage. But what can you expect from someone with no fiction writing skills whatsoever? So just get started.

If you're coming from ground-zero, the trick is to improve continually. And I do this trick by focusing on specific things. For example, when I started writing I used the emotional thesaurus to pepper my prose with little action gestures to veil cleverness in my writing. But now, I am looking at the emotional thesaurus at a different light, mainly, looking at the mental sensation of an emotion.

Never did I foresee that I'd wrap my head around these issues. What is the difference between envy and jealousy? And how will such a person proceed in my world? and how will this person interact with the object of envy/jealousy? And how will such emotion recede or implode into another emotion?

The action gestures of the emotion was the beginner course. Now things are heavier, deeper, requiring.. well.. artistry. Welcome to wizard college of fictionry. Let's no forget dialogue (psychology) and settings (senses) and the plot (geometry). Writing is a difficult craft to master. So although I said I'm decent, I still have a long way to go. Thank the heavens for creative shorts that paid my internship to this world.

I'm an expert-beast at cover design though- that I admit easily.

--

The Pool

Everyone has an opinion, including yours truly.

If you read this thread u'll see I started without knowing what a borrow was. I was just a little lost creature wandering the Amazon Safari.

Then suddenly God made a pool.

Curious and hungry, I found the pool as my primary form of sustenance. The water was fresh and delicious.

But like with all body's of water, there is the eventual springing of life forms, creatures just like me.

Most think of the pool as numbers. But pool is water. And water is what brings life.

I don't have a slightest clue why the pool existed in the first place. And I'm certain I don't know its purpose or what will happen.

But I'm sure of one thing. Water brings life. Organisms will form. And they will evolve. Many will perish. Some will survive.

The total amount of life formed depends on the pool, as is the case in a body of water.

I drink the water to survive. I suggest you do too. We both evolve to lord knows what.

In the end of this rambling, there is the thought. Actually, there isn't.

*slurp*
---

Dog-biscuit Innovations.

So many changes occurring and so many new way of doing things. I do this at this length pair it with that and call it this but set in the same world then test.

The era of the "book" is over. In its place are stories. Long story, short story, stories that are chopped. Story is not a book! It's a data packet with a plot as its spine! "Daddy what is a book?" "A story"

--

Doggie bowl, lake Amazonia.

The pool is not one body. There are streams, rivers, leading all to the Amazonia basin, to the great lake of Amazonia.

This dog drinks from streams, or sub categorically, a vein in the river of Paranomica. The water is so tasty!

But the water in these parts attract monsters. And monsters foul the water. The dog thinks it's time to move upstream. But upstream is uncharted.

Here the dog drinks from smaller veins. In his solitude he wonders. Is there water underneath?

The dog starts to dig.

---
Selfy why don't you just post something instead of editing your last post into walls of text?

Short Answer: My content, my rules.

The thread falls along, tumbling down the ranks, just like books. Without input it falls down to the grave, unseen and unread. And in the grave it contains secrets. When a searching eye finds it, the thread is bumped -- alive and buzzing! But as so, I do not want a thread high in the charts, but rather, a seemingly dead thread, filled with value, ready to be uncovered.

---
Understanding Ms. Selfy

Social dynamics plays a key part in the story, for what exists in the real world, also needs to exist in the fantasy world. I've been reading Silo (google it) since I started. This author wrote about some hole in the ground and stuck people in it. But interestingly, there are powerful themes that run through the story, one of it being social dynamics of people locked in the silo.

But what if we take the silo and bring it to the dog house. What happens then? To understand the story is to under the psychology that drives it. The lust for power, for instance. Or, the fastlane lust to accumulate cash. We all have a psychology, and this dog investigates the psychology of sex, before branching out to other theological pursuits. It starts here in the carnality of flesh. A bitch is a female dog btw. No harm done. I do not rut.

Here's a song to contemplate.

As well as imagery

---

Keys to the dungeon

Createspace has a different keyword input mechanism. Running on Ajax, the textbox displays suggestions.

It gave a dog an idea. To rummage through the suggestions, and find goddamn keys.

Dog postulates that categories in Amazonia is less important that keywords. F*ck being placed in lots of categs, but better to have the slots for those who want to open. Ya dig?

And dog sees people using same keyword in title and keyword box. No. Just put keyword in title or in textbox not both bc ur wasting valuable real estate. The Amazonia algoz will query titles, giving it preference over keywords.

--

Balthazar, dog master

Balthazar is a competitor in my sphere. But he is insanely good. His covers are simple, his theme like missiles, and his writing so lucid and refine with a voice that changes per work that im sure it's outsourced. But bultz is good. I look for the works of bultz, he is always innovating, and if my analysis of his whole collection is correct; he makes approx 10k monthly. Subscribed!

--

Swarm engine

I'm building next year the swarm engine. My swarms will create more swarms, each little beasts taking a tiny bite. Bigger swarms will be nurtured.. And bred.

 

[Selfy]

2014 was a good year. I needed to make money and then stumbled on hfr thread. I gave it a shot.

2015s last payment was $2.5k. A good number, but needs to be much better.

This year will be about routines, system building, and more productivity.

I wish you all a prosperous new year!

 

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[Cyberseraph]

Congrats to your success!

It is a good number because you made it by yourself and not by working for somebody else.

Set a new goal for 2015: 10 X 2.5 = $20.500/month

Even if you will be half right at the end, it will be an awesome result

 

[Selfy]

Thanks Cyber!

Update:

I'm learning how to write from the ground up. This includes fixing grammar, studying emotions, and plotting. I've just got started with plotting and this one will be a beast of a skill to learn. We're looking at hundreds of hours of study and practice.

The Hybrid Plan

I'll need to mix and match these skills with outsourcing because having quality author-level skill will take at least a whole year to develop. I have to constantly remind myself that I am not trying to be a writer. I tell myself that it is crucial for me to learn these skills for me to have a long-term edge. I want to compete on quality and velocity - can I have both without learning these skills? I don't think so.

 

[Selfy]

The darkest moment in a plot is where the hero faces his lowest point just before the climax where the story will reach a finite conclusion with the hero achieving his goals.

While the climax has yet to reveal itself, my little publishing business has shrunk. This is due to my quest to acquire the skills, to add more quality, rather than just flooding the market with crap. I checked my kdp for the first time this year. It's not mountains but hills.

The good news is that I've kept a writer while I acquired the skills, and this works had several five stars and some new subscriptions. My work is also humming along with reviews "it's too short" type.

I'm ready.

To scale.

The agenda consists of growing my writer roster. I have refined the work flow so that it can be efficiently run and tracked. It will be quality and velocity driven for I refuse to stand for producing crap works.

The climax is yet to come. But it will come. We just got to keep turning the page.

 

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[Selfy]

"1 day baby we'll be old, think of ol'da stories we cuda'v told." - Asaf

Happy one year at this forum.

I'd update my progress since my life had been influenced by this forum quite a bit.

My revenue had decreased
My income had increased

If that doesn't make sense, it's because I am producing these works by myself, so costs have plummeted.
One year in, I am still a struggling entrepreneur, like many of you, just that I had taken the authorship path.

MY INNER DRAGON

The issue, in my productive life, is of non-commitment. I never stick to one thing. But now, I'm older, and somewhat wiser (probably not)
to know that the good things in life don't come easy.

Self-publishing is not easy.
I am with @co-senior that it isn't FASTLANE.
But it could be.

FASTLANE is a crappy motivation for this endevour. I got to this bc it made sense FOR ME.
It is something that fits me, my personality type, the lifestyle that I want. For the time being, honestly.

So what does the second year bring?

Same thing. I produce work that my undeserved market will like, get paid just enough to sustain me, and I improve on the next. Maybe i'll try to go one genre higher in a couple of months.

 

[Hicks]

Good Lord. This is probably the funniest thread I've ever read. I actually had to stop eating while reading for fear of choking. Absolute pure gold.

 

[Selfy]

Good Lord. This is probably the funniest thread I've ever read. I actually had to stop eating while reading for fear of choking. Absolute pure gold.

 

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[Selfy]

Premise: fast lane leads to immense wealth.
Characters: Selfy against the KDP blue spikes of doom.
Darkest moment: eternal struggle of entrepreneur (starts from page 1!)
Climax: Buy the 18th book to know what happens!

Just kidding.

"I don't always write, but when I do, I use Scrivener."

I can't imagine not writing without scrivener anymore. It's absolutely great piece of software. I don't use 80% of the features on it, but it helps me tremendously. So try it out.

My gear is usually the following:

Scrivener + toggle + windows media player - internet + emotional thesaurus + customized verb sheet + post its (i love this) on win 8 + photoshop + free ebook compiler.

It's awesome. I'm thinking about adding a crystal ball to help visualize my characters, but that might be overkill; instead, I just have a breaking bad dvd on the hard drive.

So ready to make a story?

 

[Selfy]

Writing is hard work.

Actually, writing quality shorts (shorts after shorts) is hard work AND draining. I'm sure I've made less than what I could have made if I had just outsourced these books to real writers. But what I have now is: skill.

So far, I reviewed a shit load of writing-craft books to help my writing and i'm now producing with these learnings incorporated in. It's not getting easier... it's getting harder ... and taking longer to finish. I'm now only producing 10k and above. I'll be kicking it up to 20k after this and ever upward.

A note on writing life.

The writing life is boring, quiet, and maddening. There's isolation and there's isolation.

There I said it.

 

[poro78]

Oh, the sweet isolation - that's what I'm aiming for.

 

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[Selfy]

Oh, the sweet isolation - that's what I'm aiming for.

“When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.” - GRRM

 

[Selfy]

yeah, i'm alive. yeah, I'm still churning out these books. Can't believe I started this venture more than a year ago.

What's new? Well, nothing really, except now i'm an aspiring 'writer' vs. aspiring 'entrepreneur.'

I dropped all my outsourcing activities. I am writing all these books myself. So far I can pay the bills with the occasional spike here and there.

I'm somewhat decent writer now? lol. I can write deep pov, build romance arcs, build emotional and sexual tension, hide exposition, PLOT, write compelling hooks, know a bunch more techniques I ever care to use, and probably a thousand words of extra vocabs, different ways of saying the same thing but making it sound nice-basically, fluff. What the eff? I wanted to be an entrepreneur not a gottamn writer. The twist! The irony!

Can't complain thoughl because now, I'm addicted to the he-said-she-saids of my world. So yeah, keep grinding, process yada yada, labor in silence and success be your noise. I'm still an entrepreneur at heart.

 

[Lex DeVille]

yeah, i'm alive. yeah, I'm still churning out these books. Can't believe I started this venture more than a year ago.

What's new? Well, nothing really, except now i'm an aspiring 'writer' vs. aspiring 'entrepreneur.'

I dropped all my outsourcing activities. I am writing all these books myself. So far I can pay the bills with the occasional spike here and there.

I'm somewhat decent writer now? lol. I can write deep pov, build romance arcs, build emotional and sexual tension, hide exposition, PLOT, write compelling hooks, know a bunch more techniques I ever care to use, and probably a thousand words of extra vocabs, different ways of saying the same thing but making it sound nice-basically, fluff. What the eff? I wanted to be an entrepreneur not a gottamn writer. The twist! The irony!

Can't complain thoughl because now, I'm addicted to the he-said-she-saids of my world. So yeah, keep grinding, process yada yada, labor in silence and success be your noise. I'm still an entrepreneur at heart.

In the INSIDERS's forum you'd find @Held for Ransom 's most recent posts. You might see your path as more than just writing then. Writers and entrepreneurs are one in the same, as long as they keep focused on improving, learning, growing, and delivering superior quality.

Based on your post your writing has improved and if it's paying the bills then it's paying you to learn and fueling your efforts. It may be a grind, but your results sound better than most, and that's something worth fighting for. In time your writing may take you places you never dreamed possible.

At the very least you're still around. You never quit.
That makes you an aspiring entrepreneur in my book.

 

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[Selfy]

In the INSIDERS's forum you'd find @Held for Ransom 's most recent posts. You might see your path as more than just writing then. Writer's and entrepreneurs are one in the same, as long as they keep focused on improving, learning, growing, and delivering superior quality.

Based on your post your writing has improved and if it's paying the bills then it's paying you to learn and fueling your efforts. It may be a grind, but your results sound better than most, and that's something worth fighting for. In time your writing may take you places you never dreamed possible.

At the very least you're still around. You never quit.
That makes you an aspiring entrepreneur in my book.

Thanks @SinisterLex nice to see you a familiar face around here. Nice to see @Held for Ransom back posting. I may have to join INSIDERS to see what he posted.