Trying Out Self-Publishing

[Aimee]

I'm much more of a lurker on forums and I don't usually post anything, but there are quite a few self-publishing threads on here, it seems, so I thought I might as well add another one. Also, I'm proctastinating right now, so...

Anyway, I started publishing just over a week ago on the 27th October 2014, and since then I've been writing between 5k and 8k words per day. They're all fiction. Some are stand-alone, some are parts of a series, but right now, I'm pretty much just trying things out to see how things work. The only platform I'm using right now is Amazon, because most of my income so far has come from borrows. I'm not sure how much borrows will be worth this month, but I guess it's a waste of time trying to guess...

I'm doing erotica/erotic romance right now, but want to try and branch out into other types of romance in the future to see how that does. I want to write in a few other genres, too, but that will probably just be for fun. I did dabble in non-fiction for a little while, but I kept falling asleep while I was trying to write, so I decided that it would be the best decision for everyone involved if I just stopped.

Results after 1 week:
Book 1 (published 27th Oct): 11 borrows
Book 2 (published 29th Oct): 13 borrows
Book 3 (published 30th Oct): 41 borrows, 2 sales
Book 4 (published 31st Oct): 4 borrows
TOTAL: 69 borrows, 2 sales

Nothing spectacular, but I'm still learning. They're all in the same kind of niche since I was trying to build my catalogue, but I'm going to try and branch out a little more this week, just to see what happens. So far I've done no marketing, but I'm going to try out some free promos one day to see what happens.

Process:
Right now, my current process is:
1. Research bestsellers on Amazon, note down trends (takes about an hour).
2. Research bestselling authors on Amazon, note down trends (takes about an hour).
3. Pick one of the trends, use a beat sheet to think of a storyline, sum it up in a single paragraph (takes about 5 minutes).
4. Buy image from dollarphotoclub, order cover from fiverr.
5. Write, write, write (takes between 4 and 12 hours).
6. Edit, edit, edit (takes about an hour and lots of coffee breaks).
7. Write blurb and choose keywords (can take about an hour, this is probably the most important part, aside from the cover).
8. Publish, publish, publish.

Rinse and repeat.

Some stuff I've learned so far:
To be completely honest, I've only been doing this for a week, so the stuff I've learned so far is pretty limited. The only thing I can honestly advise is: just publish it. I've already spoken to so many writers who sit obsessing over a book for weeks, months, years without getting it published, simply because it's not 'perfect'. The truth is, it's never going to be perfect, and even more importantly, unless you're planning to be the next Austen or Fitzgerald, nobody's going to CARE if it's perfect. Get your spelling, grammar, and punctuation right, and you're good to go (unless your story sucks).

Also, before you spend 4393 days of your life writing something and then paying £5000 for editing and a cover, make sure there's actually a market for it.

Goals:
I wanted to try and get 50 books out by Christmas, but I think my brain might implode before I make it, so I'm lowering the target to 30. 30 books out by Christmas would be awesome, and then I'll take it from there. I don't really have a monetary goal, since that's not something I can control, so for now I'm just sticking with production numbers and word count goals. I try to hit around 5k words every day, but some days I do more and some days I do less, so I guess it kind of evens out.
I'm going to use whatever funds I get from this to try and outsource some of the writing in the future, and possibly even translate some of the more popular ones, but once again, not entirely sure...going to set aside some for a side business that I'm working on, too, because as much as I love writing, I'm not sure I feel comfortable placing all of my eggs in the (undoubtedly fickle) Amazon basket.

I've probably passed my daily 5k word goal by just writing this post, but hopefully it's helped someone (although I'll openly admit that I don't really have much of an idea what I'm doing right now), but either way, it'll help me track my progress, I guess.

Oh wow, this post is a monster. Apologies for rambling. My books aren't this boring...honest!
Time to start writing again...aaah.

 

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[Aimee]

You'll be killing it soon sure enough. I was where you're at right now about six weeks ago. Just a matter of scaling up. Good job! Not sure if the seven keyword selection is really all that useful other than category placement though, still mulling over that myself.

Thank you! I really appreciate it. Yeah, I don't think anyone really knows how it works, haha. It's better to be safe than sorry, though, I guess. It doesn't take that long, either, in the grand scheme of things.

I've been pretty busy, so I haven't been hanging around forums very much, but I wanted to update my results so I can look back on them in a couple of months or whatever. These are my results taken from a couple of days ago (Tuesday the 11th):

Pen Name #1:

Book 1 (standalone, Oct 27): 16 borrows
Book 4 (standalone, Oct 31): 7 borrows
[These were a terrible idea, they pretty much just flopped. Thinking of releasing one before to make a bundle, but there is so much other stuff I need to write at the moment that I just don't have time...]

Series 1:
Book 2 (series (vol 1), Oct 29): 32 borrows, 2 sales
Book 8 (series (vol 2), Nov 7): 6 borrows, 1 sale

Series 2:
Book 3 (series (vol 1), Oct 30): 95 borrows, 8 sales
Book 9 (series (vol 2), Nov 9): 3 borrows

Series 3:
Book 6 (series (vol 1), Nov 4): 18 borrows, 5 sales

Mailing list sign ups: 4

Pen Name #2:
Book 5 (standalone, Nov 5): 23 borrows, 4 sales
Book 7 (standalone, Nov 7): 20 borrows, 9 sales
Book 10 (standalone, Nov 10): 1 borrow, 1 sale

Mailing list sign ups: 0

Total overall after 2 weeks: 221 borrows, 30 sales
Total this week: 152 borrows, 28 sales

What I've learned this week:
No matter how much of a good idea it might seem like at the time, don't be an idiot and start 3 different series' at the same time if you have no idea what you're doing. Just no. No. Stop.

Right now I'm just focussing on finishing the different series' I've started, aiming for about 8k words a day to try and get them finished by next Tuesday, if possible, then I can bundle them or something. In the future, if I do a series, I think it will probably make more sense to release them all at once, as opposed to waiting a week or so between releases. Especially kicking myself about series 2, I didn't expect that to be so popular. Also kind of kicking myself about the mailing list, I think I could have got quite a few more sign-ups if I'd started a little earlier, but not too bothered. To be honest, I didn't expect anyone to actually sign up, so I'm pretty happy, I think. I reeeaally want to start some longer works, but need to finish off everything I've started first...oops.

These aren't amazing results by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm just experimenting right now more than anything, I suppose, so I'm more than happy. Not sure how long I should wait before I bundle the 3 shorts from pen name #2, was thinking about leaving it a few days since they're all selling pretty well by themselves right now, and if I put the bundle into KU, I'll essentially be throwing borrows away...? But not sure.

This post was far too long, and I'm not sure if it even makes sense to anyone except from myself. Will stop now.

 

[Aimee]

Ahh damn it's been so long since I last posted an update!

Okay, so I decided to go to uni to study computer science. I was a bit sceptical about whether or not I'd go, but I'm so glad I did. I love it!

I had a bit of a personal issue that kind of shook me up a bit, so I stopped writing for a few months until I got myself back on track. Things are pretty good again - I'm aiming to write about 1.5k words every morning and 1.5k every evening, and although sales have dropped quite substantially, I'm pretty certain I can pick them up again with a bit of dedication. I'm writing strictly in the romance niche right now, usually 3 part series. Each part is around 20k words, and then I bundle them altogether and make a 60k word novel.

The changes Amazon made to KDP did shake things up a lot, and although I'm going to keep writing just because I enjoy it, I'm probably going to try and steer away from it as my main source of income. I think self-publishing is still worth it, and although many would argue it's a lot more difficult now than it used to be, I'd personally argue it's just different. You just have to keep up with the changes. Self-publishing was never meant to be my 'fastlane' thing - I was merely using it as an experiment and to earn enough capital to travel and start another venture. I would, however, warn anyone considering relying on it as their only source of income. It's a fantastic opportunity, but it can also be extremely volatile. You are at the mercy of Amazon.

That being said, I definitely accomplished my goals with self publishing - I spent last summer travelling around Europe which was an awesome experience, and I'm going to use pretty much the rest of the money I earned to try my hand at importing - something I've been considering for a while now but never quite had the guts (or money) to delve in to.

Looking back, that was more of a life update than anything else, sorry for rambling! I probably won't post many more updates, but I'm more than willing to answer any questions. Just post them here or drop me a message! I can also recommend some useful websites if anyone needs a shove in the right direction.

 

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[Aimee]

Thanks that's good advice. What do you think about the size of the niches that you should go after? I've been suggested to only go for smaller niches that have like 200 search results so that it would be easier to dominate that niche. But then again small niches generate small sales..so I don't know should I choose a larger one or a smaller one.

I've heard the same advice, but I've never really tried it out, so I'm honestly not sure how well it works. In fiction, however, I always go for the biggest niches. They're the most saturated, but it's also easier to get readers. I think that with the introduction of KU (assuming you're using Amazon), people are more willing to take a chance on smaller authors. Perhaps try one ebook targeting a large niche, and one targeting a small niche and see which works better? But yeah, I'm no expert on this subject at all.

I haven't been online much since my laptop broke and I've been having to use my iPad to write everything which is partly why everything has been so slow, but I'll post an update for the past week. Sales kind of died this week, so I've been trying to combat it by writing more. Think some of my stuff dropped off the 30 day cliff. Oops.

Books published:
Pen name #1: 10 books
Pen name #2: 7 books, 1 bundle
Total: 17 books, 1 bundle

Sales and borrows for first week of December:
Pen name #1: 88 borrows, 10 sales
Pen name #2: 18 borrows, 5 sales
Total: 106 borrows, 15 sales

Mailing list for #1 has 16 sign ups, mailing list for #2 has 0 sign ups. Going to try to increase sign ups by offering free books upon sign up or something, but I want to finish my series' for #1 and pump out some more shorts for #2 first. I have 3 stories to edit and publish for #2 tonight, soooo we'll see.

Think I'm finally starting to get the hang of this now, just need to write more.

 

[Aimee]

So far in Dec: 490 borrows, 70 sales
This week: 220 borrows, 22 sales

So far I've released 23 titles (including bundles) across two pen names. I know most people said not to put bundles in KU, but it seems to have worked much better for me that way, so I'll be leaving mine in.

Don't have much to say this week, really. I've been quite busy doing various other things, so I haven't dedicated as much time to this as I'd have liked. Either way, I still plan to meet my 30 titles by New Year goal, so that's 7 titles in 7 days...should be fun (or not). Outsourcing is still work in progress.

 

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[Aimee]

The day still isn't over, but I'm tired and I still have some stuff to do, so I'm just going to post my weekly update thing now. It seems as though a lot of people have been getting kindles for Christmas this year. I've had a bit of an increase in both sales and borrows, kind of. I've been slacking a bit though recently, so ugh.

Overall for Nov so far: 781 borrows, 116 sales
Overall this week: 291 borrows, 46 sales

I've been trying to outsource, although I've only done one book so far. The unreliability of freelancers is frustrating me, and although I agree that you often get what you pay for, I've found that prices often don't reflect quality of writing. I'm expecting to have to edit a little, but there's a certain point when it just becomes more effective to write it myself.

On the bright side, I've published 29 things overall now (including a few bundles) and I've got one almost ready to publish tomorrow, so I'll definitely hit my goal of publishing 30 by New Year. It does help that December has 31 days in it, and not 30 like I originally thought. Duh. I'm not sure how it is for everyone else, but my bundles always seem to sell a couple of copies, then they completely flop. Dammit.

Not sure why I'm still posting these, but hopefully someone (maybe) finds them useful. Should probably get back to writing now...

 

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[COSenior]

I've yet to even browse the site at which you are selling these segments, of sentences and paragraphs designed to provide a false sense of stimulation and ensnare the reader into providing funds

No, no selling involved. You are reading a thread on a subforum of The Millionaire Fastlane , in which we who aspire to earn money from our writing share our experiences in our own threads; what worked, what didn't, everything you need to get started just as the @Aimee did. Anyone following her example will usually receive encouragement and moral support from those who have gone before. Go to the top of the page, click on the bolded Writing and Self-Publishing link, and you'll see a list of dozens of threads. Those that I recommend are pinned at the top and designated Gold Threads.

It's all there, and I don't mean to offend you, but it is frankly annoying to those of us who have been here awhile and answered questions to see people asking the same questions again, over and over. The pinned posts are those that the owner of the site has deemed the most valuable. You'll find almost everything you need to know to get started in them. Hello from Denver is the one that most of the old-timers here saw and took inspiration from. It launched my career. I'd recommend reading that one first. If you prefer outsourcing (won't work if you have no funds), look for a thread called "My Take on Self-Publishing". I thought it was pinned, but don't see it now.

Other members of this community who have provided value are @Thriftypreneur, @Rawr, @SinisterLex and half a dozen or more others that I hope I haven't offended by not remembering to mention them.

PS, You need SOME money to self-publish. Not a lot, but some. I'd recommend finding a job that will pay you enough to get started, even if it's just part-time, low-pay. You obviously have someone to support you while you play video games. Take advantage of that while you still can, but start your writing career with half a chance at making it.

 

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[Draven Grey]

Wow, hostile much? Give a newbie a break lol..
I would assume that most Authors would want as much exposure and opportunities for sale as possible, figured that was self explanatory but perhaps I was mistaken.
It costs nothing but a little time to register and upload books to the KaiReader platform. You can set your own pricing, apply DRM or not, and users can purchase from the iOS and Android apps as well as the website.

But each to their own. Just trying to raise awareness of a new service for self-published authors, is all.

I think most people here are skeptical of posts like yours - not hostile really, but protective. If you had been here a while, adding value, then I'm sure the response would've been different. Your post didn't add value, but rather by your own words, asked us to add value to you. We know nothing about you. That's why you were immediately asked for proof of value.

 

[Aimee]

Sales kind of sucked this week (especially today, dammit), and I don't have much time to update since I'm waaaay behind schedule for today and have another 11 pages to proofread and edit before I go to sleep, so I'll just post an overall update for the month of November:

Books published:
Pen name #1: 9
Pen name #2: 4 (and one bundle, but that just sucked)
TOTAL: 13

Sales and Borrows:
Pen name #1: 395 borrows, 31 sales
Pen name #2: 119 borrows, 23 sales
TOTAL: 514 borrows, 54 sales

Not bad for the first month (I think?!), just got to keep plugging away. Also got 11 signups on my mailing list for pen name #1. Pen name #2 has no sign ups, but that's just because it's straight erotica with pretty much no story, I think. I wouldn't sign up for a mailing list for that, either...

For December, my goals are to finish all of the series' I've started (two of them will have three books each, the other will be a bit longer), get to 30 books overall by writing more erotica as opposed to erom, aaaand actually doing some promos once my series' are finished.

Time to finish editing. Hahahahahaha. Ha.

 

[Aimee]

Borrow rate was $1.39 for November, up from $1.33 in Oct. I honestly think Amazon's just doing this to try and keep people hanging onto KU for a little bit longer to try and give them hope so everyone doesn't do a mass pull-out over Christmas, but whatever. If they're trying to tempt us, it's working for me. Gotta write faster!

November was my first full month of self-publishing, and I made just under $1k, so I'm pretty happy. It's definitely better than crawling around on my hands and knees scraping chips up off the floor and being screamed at because some lady got the wrong burger at McDonald's, ha. But life goes on. It was, erm, character building.

Sales overall so far in Dec: 270 borrows, 48 sales
Sales this week: 164 borrows, 33 sales

Was supposed to publish 2 books today and didn't even get them finished, but I guess I'm okay with taking a day off after seeing last month's results. Going to keep half of it for funsies and expenses, and stash the other half of it away to pump into future projects. I also decided to try outsourcing now I know how this thing works, so I've ordered one story from a freelancer to see how things turn out. My shorts sell much better in terms of time invested, but there are days when sitting down and writing 5k words of erotica just ain't all that appealing.

Thank you for all the support everyone has given me so far, it's great being a part of such a supportive community!

Used faaar too many smiley faces. Going to bed now...

 

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[ChickenHawk]

Congrats on your stellar beginning and amazing word counts!

The only thing I can honestly advise is: just publish it. I've already spoken to so many writers who sit obsessing over a book for weeks, months, years without getting it published, simply because it's not 'perfect'.

This is excellent advice!

Also, a quick note... Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anything in your posts to indicate that you've set up a mailing list. If you haven't done that, please consider doing that asap. If you have a strong mailing list, that can be a huge benefit in launching your books and helping to make sure that Amazon doesn't completely "own" you. (BTW, for my mailing list, I use MailCheat(Chimp). It's easy to set up and free if you have less than 2,000 subscribers.)

Good luck as you move forward!

 

[Lex DeVille]

There's quite a bit of talk on Kboards about sales being low after Black Friday and before Christmas.

I think we'll see a nice little spike after Christmas.

Everybody will have brand new Ereaders, and I'm guessing many will also have brand new subscriptions to KU.

It's like a whole new market of customers coming to town.

 

[Aimee]

Hey, Hicks! Hope you're doing well!

I haven't been posting much recently as I haven't had anything to update. Things were awesome over Christmas, then they trailed off a little. Still doing well enough for what I want, though. As long as I can break the 1k threshold every month, I'm pretty good for now. Currently aiming to write between 3k and 8k words per day. Most of my freelancers have slipped a little, so I need to try and hire some more when I get a free minute.
Currently working on 3 pen names right now, and focussing on longer stuff. One pen name has 46 email subscribers, one only has 3 (nobody signs up to the list but this pen name has the most sales of all), and the last pen name I started yesterday has 2 subsribers already, which I'm pretty happy with. I think I've got the hang of it now. I'm getting better at picking genres, writing, and designing covers, which is awesome.
A few people have even went to the hassle of sending me emails to compliment some of my work, and I've got a BETA reader now, which feels pretty good. I don't think my writing is anything special (in fact, I think it's pretty naff), but people seem to like it, so that's good enough for me. I want to invest in an editor, but it's kind of expensive, so I'm going to wait until I'm earning just a little more.

I haven't been putting in as much effort as I should have, so I've kicked it up a notch over the past few days. I don't like just sticking to publishing (my only platform is Amazon, and it's pretty volatile, as any self-publisher will know), so once I've managed to consistently hit 50 sales/borrows a day, I'm going to start reinvesting on something else.

Pretty burnt out and tired right now, so going away for a few days next week to re-energise. I've been working in the library recently, and I've found that helps me to be more productive, but eh. There are some weird characters in there...

That was probably more than I needed to write, but I have 2.5k words to go and I'm trying to procrastinate... If things get desperate, I might count this post in my daily wordcount goal. Or not...

 

[COSenior]

Do you suggest that I don't put the bundle in KU at all, even though it will most likely fall down the rankings a lot quicker? You're obviously much more experienced at this stuff than I am, and any advice is greatly appreciated, haha.

I have two answers to that. Held for Ransom said at one point that he didn't see any drop-off in sales between the individual stories and the bundles. That never made any sense to me as a reader. If I knew someone was going to bundle and probably give a bit of a discount, I'd wait for that, most likely. Apparently I'm not typical, though. Also, that was before KU. So, from that perspective, assuming things were still the same as they were the last time he was active on the forum (which I don't think they are), I'd bundle, but maybe not put it on KDP Select.

Now for my answer. If I were in your shoes, with the momentum you have going with these short works, the only reason I'd bundle is to get the higher commission on the bundled set, which wouldn't work out very well if you had them in KU. About $1.50 per book, instead of say $2 for a $2.99 price.

Now, KU puts a different slant on things than when I started out, and I think we're all still trying to figure out how it's going to work for us. If you're going to continue to turn out short stories at the rate you have been, KU is going to be in your favor for two reasons; one, you can get a higher royalty for a borrow than you'll get for a sale, and two, your name is going to get familiar to the readers in your genre just because of the sheer volume of titles. However, you have no control over future royalty for borrows. What if Amazon stops artificially propping KU up? In fact, you have no control over anything Amazon does.

So, here's what I would do, and it's purely a personal preference; I have no data to back it up as any more viable a plan than what you're doing right now. I'd continue to churn out the shorter stuff in the pen name that's doing better from your perspective because they take less time to write. I'd also begin to work toward longer titles in the one you like to write better. It's my perception that longer works have more staying power, with standard-length novels (around 100k words) having the best staying power. You will eventually want to take a week off. It would be nice if you could do that without losing your audience. But, because you'll already have a good-sized catalog and a recognizable name, KU won't necessarily be required to get your newer, longer stuff off the ground.

@ChickenHawk is on record as stating that it seems to be harder for non-KDPS works to get traction, because Amazon is pushing KU so hard (all KDPS titles are automatically included in KU unless you specifically ask that they not be). I agree to a certain extent. However, it is and has always been common knowledge, backed up by some people who do actual data gathering, that more titles equals more sales of each title. There's a synergy that boosts backlist any time you publish a new title. For that reason, once you have a significant catalog, your longer stuff will be found by your audience with or without KU. You seem to have found a niche where there's an eager audience for your work, that doesn't mind short stories. Keep feeding that, but begin to stretch toward more mainstream, longer works with more staying power.

I hope that made some kind of sense. It isn't what I'm doing with my titles right now, simply because with longer works, the catalog can't be built as fast. Therefore, we're trying to build audience with KDPS and KU. Eventually, when they're well established, we'll remove the books from KDPS and publish them on other platforms.

 

[Aimee]

Been pretty busy, haven't had the chance to update for a while. I haven't written anything in the past week since I've been away, so I've got a lot to catch up on. Kind of lost track of things a bit, so I'll just update with the figures off KDP. These are from 1st Nov til yesterday the 24th Nov.

Pen name #1

Book 1 (standalone, Oct 27): 17 borrows
Book 4 (standalone, Oct 31): 12 borrows

Series 1:
Book 2 (series (vol 1), Oct 29): 56 borrows, 2 sales
Book 8 (series (vol 2), Nov 7): 31 borrows, 1 sale

Series 2:
Book 3 (series (vol 1), Oct 30): 142 borrows, 9 sales
Book 9 (series (vol 2), Nov 9): 41 borrows, 2 sales

Series 3:
Book 6 (series (vol 1), Nov 4): 43 borrows, 9 sales
Book 11 (series (vol 2), Nov 19): 3 borrows, 4 sales

Mailing list sign ups: 9

Pen Name #2:
Book 5 (standalone, Nov 5): 33 borrows, 7 sales
Book 7 (standalone, Nov 7): 56 borrows, 11 sales
Book 10 (standalone, Nov 10): 16 borrows, 2 sales

Mailing list sign ups: 0

Total for previous 24 days: 450 borrows, 47 sales

Yeah, not as good as it probably should be, but I'm happy and I'm back on track now.

Tried with a bundle for pen name #2 last Tuesday for $3.99 but it wasn't selling so I switched it to KU and got 4 borrows. Then changed my mind and took it out of KU, and now it's just kind of sitting there. Not really sure what to do with it right now...

Anyway yeah, not much to update, so I'll just leave it at this. Will update more at the end of November.

 

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[Aimee]

@Aimee Hey! So how are you doing so far? I have a few questions:

Do you do any kind of advertising? Do you have a blog an email list? Do you recommend any good book about writting fiction? Thank you very much, also if you have any advice you considerate important, don't hesitate to say it!! Thank you a lot, your thread is an inspiration to me.

Hello! I'm doing very well, thank you. Not much has changed and I didn't really have anything to update, so I haven't been posting as much recently, haha. Things took a bit of a dive at the start of January in comparison to December, but it's still ticking away. I've also found that I've been calculating my borrows wrong, so there's that too...

Right now I don't do any advertising because I think the best form of advertising is writing new books. I might experiment with some paid advertising in the future but I haven't done anything yet. I did experiment with one promotion (bknights on fiverr) because everyone preaches about it and I think it might have given me a slight boost, but I can't say for certain. From what I can tell he gets lots of orders and advertises far too many books within a very short space of time, so even if it's just $5, it seems a bit pointless. The only person winning there is him.

I do have an email list, but for now it's only got 25 people on it. I haven't done much with it yet but I plan to soon, so I'll let you know how it goes. I don't have a blog, because I feel like the time is better spent writing. I'm trying to transition into longer romance right now though, so I might set one up for that eventually, but I don't think it will do too much in the way of promotion.

Books I'd recommend include:
- 'On Writing' - interesting and entertaining.
- ' Write. Publish. Repeat.' - good for writers of longer works.
- 'The Elements of Style' - great for learning how to write, I use it as a reference all the time.
- 'The Chicago Manual of Style' - great to use as a reference, buy a physical copy secondhand on Amazon.

Most of the advice I've got has already been posted, but I'll (try to) answer any specific questions... I'm glad you've found it useful!

 

[Aimee]

Awesome!

Thank you very much! I actually stalked all of the other authors here and read through their threads before I decided to venture out on my own, and they certainly have been more than useful. I'm super grateful for all of the help everyone's given!
Readers have an option to either borrow or buy, but as most of the stories I write are shorts and can be read in under an hour or so, I guess it makes more sense for them to borrow as it's cheaper in the long term if you read a lot of that stuff.

Pretty awesome! I wish I could write that fast/much in a day... My personal best is 3,000 words, and I felt completely drained after that. But then, it was for a full length novel, and I find those much harder than shorter stories. Congrats on your progress so far, keep us posted!

3,000 words is great! Yeah, I'm the same. I can write a short story pretty quickly, but novels take much longer, they seem to drag on much more for some reason, especially the middle section. That's usually the part where I question myself and convince myself that everything I've written so far is awful and I should just give up and stop writing, haha. With shorter stuff, there's no time to do that. It's just write, edit, publish. Thanks for your support!

 

[Charnell]

Do you guys have the chance to opt out of Amazon's lending system, or is it an automatic opt-in. Not sure what your margins are but it seems likely to me that a handful of real sales would be much better than dozens of rentals.

Do you mean borrows, or the actual lending? You can opt in to KDP Select when you publish, its not required.

From what I've gathered, it seems like the people that download free books aren't going to be the same that would buy a book, much like a person that only uses Amazon's unlimited books for $9.99 isn't going to be one to buy a book outright. All those borrows, wouldn't have been sales. Much like when you opt into KPD select and do a 5 day free book giveaway and get hundreds of downloads, then don't get hundreds of sales. Different group of people.

 

[COSenior]

I'm an eighteen year old sentient being with no cash at my disposal I 'm interested in this method of providing funds for ones self. I would be no competition for yourself ... If we could potentially communicate by some means I would appreciate eny knowledge you have to offer



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Dear Sentient Being. There are a number of pinned posts at the top of this subforum's menu. Read them, take action, create a progress thread and then if you still have questions, someone is sure to answer.

 

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[Aimee]

I'm an eighteen year old sentient being with no cash at my disposal I 'm interested in this method of providing funds for ones self. I would be no competition for yourself ... If we could potentially communicate by some means I would appreciate eny knowledge you have to offer



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hiya, I'm glad you've taken an interest in my mindless ramblings, haha.
Pretty much any knowledge I have to offer (which, as you can imagine is not an awful lot right now...), I've revealed in this thread. I honestly don't think there's a way for me to be any more open without giving too much away, I'm trying my best to quite literally spell out the process as I go along.

I have no issue with answering any questions if you have any, but as @COSenior has already pointed out, there are many people on this forum with much more experience than myself, and petty much all of the information and encouragement you need to get yourself started can be found for free on their threads. That's exactly what I used to start out.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm worried about competition at all - the ebook market is so vast that I think there'll always be room for additions. But learning how to do it is part of the process. I spent hours teaching myself how to do this and making loads of mistakes (and I'm still making them), and I'm in pretty much the same position as yourself right now, so I don't really have the time (or knowledge) to hold anyone's hand through the learning process. To be honest, there's not a lot I can really tell you - just do a bit of research in the genre(s) your're most interested in, read the top selling books, and write, write, write. Hopefully you'll find the information I'm sharing valuable, though, and I wish you the very best of luck!

 

[Boyd]

If you have your ebooks in epub or pdf format, consider submitting them to www.kaireader.com - we're a startup looking for self-publishing authors to submit ebooks to sell on our platform. Such proliferous writing should boost our catalogue quickly

All you've stated in your post is who YOU are and how this would help YOU.

@Aimee seems to be doing just fine without your website. What additional benefit would there be for HER to take you up on this offer?

 

[Selfy]

Glad to see your progress Aimee, my curve started off like yours, back around June. I pivoted to outsource model, and now back to to writing again and keeping the outsource model as well. I'm now on iteration 3.

I think it's really important to nail down the writing. When I started, I didn't build a mailing list bc my writing was crappy. But guess what happens after writing countless of these shorts and editing other shorts? Bam, now I feel confident of building an email list. I even have subscribers and some good reviews. Craziness..

A caveat on the outsource model. It takes time to master this model -- and requires not just time investment, but cash, and a wide range of business skills. I lucked out again as the first of my outsource model stuff came out when KU was a little higher, it just gave me enough to hammer a process down. It's not done yet, but it's seeded and ready to scale along with some quality measures built-in. Outsource model feels closer to entrepreneurship, but quality writing is just as an important. This community is great!

 

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[Aimee]

what's your regular sales and borrows per book? Do you have any book that oversales?

Why shouldn't I publish bundles in KU? I was thinking of publishing a series of 4 books the next month on KU...
thankk youu

(490 + 70)/23 = 24.3 units sold per book.
One book that took 10 hours has 5 sales, one book that took 3 hours has over 120 sales, hence why I'm concentrating on shorter stuff right now.

People say not to publish bundles in KU because you're essentially losing money if someone borrows the bundle as opposed to buying the books individually. Publishing a series is fine, just make sure to publish each book individually.

How much $ is 1 borrow?

Charnell is correct for the most part, I think borrows were $1.39 last month.

 

[Selfy]

Hahaha That is true and I hope to get to that point soon, but I figure I should try it myself first. Still learning.
You say you've started outsourcing, approximately how much do you pay your freelancers if you don't mind me asking?

I crossed 40 outsourced shorts. I pay anywhere from 25 to 200 per work, with my better writers locked at 5 work submission contracts or more, or never ending until I pull the break (submit all you want extravaganza). Caveat: you get what you pay for. I'll be expanding this next year.

You'll need to figure out how much one title in its lifetime will net you, so you can determine the price to pay. Data analysis is your friend here. You can lose money.

 

[COSenior]

I've been lax about reading new threads lately, but I'm glad I took a flyer on yours. You seem to get it, and your progress is astounding. Sounds like you may have hit on just the right strategy for you.

I'd encourage you to go ahead and stretch your comfort zone with the length. Novellas are now selling for what full-length novels sold for when I started about a year ago. I'd be willing to bet that as indies get more confident about their work, they'll be able to command the price that the trad-published authors get. With a backlist that you'll have by Christmas, you could be making a full-time living at writing before you know it.

 

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[COSenior]

Thank you! I really appreciate it. Yeah, I don't think anyone really knows how it works, haha. It's better to be safe than sorry, though, I guess. It doesn't take that long, either, in the grand scheme of things.

I've been pretty busy, so I haven't been hanging around forums very much, but I wanted to update my results so I can look back on them in a couple of months or whatever. These are my results taken from a couple of days ago (Tuesday the 11th):

Pen Name #1:

Book 1 (standalone, Oct 27): 16 borrows
Book 4 (standalone, Oct 31): 7 borrows
[These were a terrible idea, they pretty much just flopped. Thinking of releasing one before to make a bundle, but there is so much other stuff I need to write at the moment that I just don't have time...]

Series 1:
Book 2 (series (vol 1), Oct 29): 32 borrows, 2 sales
Book 8 (series (vol 2), Nov 7): 6 borrows, 1 sale

Series 2:
Book 3 (series (vol 1), Oct 30): 95 borrows, 8 sales
Book 9 (series (vol 2), Nov 9): 3 borrows

Series 3:
Book 6 (series (vol 1), Nov 4): 18 borrows, 5 sales

Mailing list sign ups: 4

Pen Name #2:
Book 5 (standalone, Nov 5): 23 borrows, 4 sales
Book 7 (standalone, Nov 7): 20 borrows, 9 sales
Book 10 (standalone, Nov 10): 1 borrow, 1 sale

Mailing list sign ups: 0

Total overall after 2 weeks: 221 borrows, 30 sales
Total this week: 152 borrows, 28 sales

What I've learned this week:
No matter how much of a good idea it might seem like at the time, don't be an idiot and start 3 different series' at the same time if you have no idea what you're doing. Just no. No. Stop.

Right now I'm just focussing on finishing the different series' I've started, aiming for about 8k words a day to try and get them finished by next Tuesday, if possible, then I can bundle them or something. In the future, if I do a series, I think it will probably make more sense to release them all at once, as opposed to waiting a week or so between releases. Especially kicking myself about series 2, I didn't expect that to be so popular. Also kind of kicking myself about the mailing list, I think I could have got quite a few more sign-ups if I'd started a little earlier, but not too bothered. To be honest, I didn't expect anyone to actually sign up, so I'm pretty happy, I think. I reeeaally want to start some longer works, but need to finish off everything I've started first...oops.

These aren't amazing results by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm just experimenting right now more than anything, I suppose, so I'm more than happy. Not sure how long I should wait before I bundle the 3 shorts from pen name #2, was thinking about leaving it a few days since they're all selling pretty well by themselves right now, and if I put the bundle into KU, I'll essentially be throwing borrows away...? But not sure.

This post was far too long, and I'm not sure if it even makes sense to anyone except from myself. Will stop now.

That's a really outstanding result, actually, especially for short works that you've spent so little time on. 10 titles in a two-week span? Incredible, even if they're short stories. That shows real focus and drive.

If I thought you'd give away your secrets, I'd ask how you got that many borrows for your first book in series 2. I agree, though, don't scatter your efforts that way, especially when you're first starting out. However, at least now you know what works and what doesn't. I'd now focus on that pen name, if I were you. I assume the two pen names are for two different categories?

I have a resource for you, to help you track your results. All sorts of spreadsheets available at http://coffeebreaksocialmedia.com/books/resources/, including one for words written per day that aggregates weekly, monthly and yearly. Another tracks rankings and calculates a ballpark for what you're earning.

BTW, in response to the person who mentioned not bundling unless you make more for a borrow on a bundle than on a single book, I presume you know that all borrows are paid the same amount, which is based on the pool divided by the total number of borrows. The pool changes monthly, so the pay for a borrow might vary quite a bit, but not from book to book; only from month to month. Pricing your title higher also doesn't affect the pay per borrow. In fact, if your titles are priced at .99, you make more per borrow than per sale. If yours is $2.99 and mine is $8.99, we each make the same amount per borrow, but I'm making much less per borrow than per sale, while you're making pretty close to the same for either. So, as you become more recognized and can make more per book, the borrows become less valuable than they are right now.

 

[Aimee]

I have two answers to that. Held for Ransom said at one point that he didn't see any drop-off in sales between the individual stories and the bundles. That never made any sense to me as a reader. If I knew someone was going to bundle and probably give a bit of a discount, I'd wait for that, most likely. Apparently I'm not typical, though. Also, that was before KU. So, from that perspective, assuming things were still the same as they were the last time he was active on the forum (which I don't think they are), I'd bundle, but maybe not put it on KDP Select.

Now for my answer. If I were in your shoes, with the momentum you have going with these short works, the only reason I'd bundle is to get the higher commission on the bundled set, which wouldn't work out very well if you had them in KU. About $1.50 per book, instead of say $2 for a $2.99 price.

Now, KU puts a different slant on things than when I started out, and I think we're all still trying to figure out how it's going to work for us. If you're going to continue to turn out short stories at the rate you have been, KU is going to be in your favor for two reasons; one, you can get a higher royalty for a borrow than you'll get for a sale, and two, your name is going to get familiar to the readers in your genre just because of the sheer volume of titles. However, you have no control over future royalty for borrows. What if Amazon stops artificially propping KU up? In fact, you have no control over anything Amazon does.

So, here's what I would do, and it's purely a personal preference; I have no data to back it up as any more viable a plan than what you're doing right now. I'd continue to churn out the shorter stuff in the pen name that's doing better from your perspective because they take less time to write. I'd also begin to work toward longer titles in the one you like to write better. It's my perception that longer works have more staying power, with standard-length novels (around 100k words) having the best staying power. You will eventually want to take a week off. It would be nice if you could do that without losing your audience. But, because you'll already have a good-sized catalog and a recognizable name, KU won't necessarily be required to get your newer, longer stuff off the ground.

@ChickenHawk is on record as stating that it seems to be harder for non-KDPS works to get traction, because Amazon is pushing KU so hard (all KDPS titles are automatically included in KU unless you specifically ask that they not be). I agree to a certain extent. However, it is and has always been common knowledge, backed up by some people who do actual data gathering, that more titles equals more sales of each title. There's a synergy that boosts backlist any time you publish a new title. For that reason, once you have a significant catalog, your longer stuff will be found by your audience with or without KU. You seem to have found a niche where there's an eager audience for your work, that doesn't mind short stories. Keep feeding that, but begin to stretch toward more mainstream, longer works with more staying power.

I hope that made some kind of sense. It isn't what I'm doing with my titles right now, simply because with longer works, the catalog can't be built as fast. Therefore, we're trying to build audience with KDPS and KU. Eventually, when they're well established, we'll remove the books from KDPS and publish them on other platforms.

Oh, wow. This is brilliant, thank you so much for being so helpful!

I agree with everything you're saying, and I understand where you're coming from. You're completely right that Amazon could stop propping KU up at any minute and that I pretty much have no control whatsoever, which I suppose is part of the reason why I'm trying to write so fast, haha. I want to try and get as much done before Christmas, at least. And yes, Amazon are definitely, definitely pushing KU much more than the regular books.

Yeah, I've been thinking about doing longer stuff too, although it's undoubtedly much more daunting, haha. I suppose I have a little more confidence after releasing the shorter stuff, so I think I might give it a go once I've finished writing all of those series' I've randomly started, haha.

It definitely made lots of sense, and it's reassured me a lot, so thank you. I'm pretty much trying to do the same thing (eventually). I hate relying on Amazon for everything, but KU makes things too tempting for beginners. I might try experimenting with some shorter stuff outside of KU over the next few weeks, but I'm not sure just yet. I'm glad everything's going smoothly for you, too! You deserve it!

 

[COSenior]

Do you guys have the chance to opt out of Amazon's lending system, or is it an automatic opt-in. Not sure what your margins are but it seems likely to me that a handful of real sales would be much better than dozens of rentals.

It's an automatic opt-in if you go with KDP Select, although I believe you can opt out. But your assumption that real sales are better than borrows isn't correct for a low-priced product. The borrow actually pays several times the royalty over a 35% rate for say, a 99 cent title.

 

[RHL]

But your assumption that real sales are better than borrows isn't correct for a low-priced product. The borrow actually pays several times the royalty over a 35% rate for say, a 99 cent title.

So it's a great option for all the $0.99 books out there, but a worse option for the $9.99 or higher end type stuff. Thanks for clearing that up!

 

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[MTF]

You're crushing it, @Aimee. I love your updates. You have a spirit of a true hustler.

 

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