Trying Out Self-Publishing

[Aimee]

There were really that high? Man I forget already and it's only been 7 days since the report.

Haha yeah, it was a shock. Will be interesting to see what December's rate is!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[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.

 

[Charnell]

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.

I heard that. I'm taking a gamble moving into non-fiction. It hasn't been the first complete month yet so I don't know how well each title is going to be. I know with fiction I could make 3 or 4 times the initial investment in the first month then have it never sell again...but want something more long term.

 

[Gabriel]

I heard that. I'm taking a gamble moving into non-fiction. It hasn't been the first complete month yet so I don't know how well each title is going to be. I know with fiction I could make 3 or 4 times the initial investment in the first month then have it never sell again...but want something more long term.

If you put the titles thrugh KDP, wouldn't that solve the logenvity concern? It will get a little activity burst every 3 months, even if it is not much, or lowering the price to .99 I am editing and revising my first non-fiction book hence just take my advice as what it is, a cold guess.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Charnell]

If you put the titles thrugh KDP, wouldn't that solve the logenvity concern? It will get a little activity burst every 3 months, even if it is not much, or lowering the price to .99 I am editing and revising my first non-fiction book hence just take my advice as what it is, a cold guess.

I do put everything in KDP, and yes the 3 month 5 days free do help a bit.
The longevity concern comes from fiction. I was/am doing short >10k word erotica. Their shelf life is short. You put it out, it gets a handful of sales and borrows, then has a slow death tail. I've included an attachment of one of the books I put out. Granted it made me over $300 in October for literally an hour of work, I'd rather have it made me $300 over the course of the year, and every year, instead of here's your cash I'm out kind of deal.

 

[Gabriel]

I do put everything in KDP, and yes the 3 month 5 days free do help a bit.
The longevity concern comes from fiction. I was/am doing short >10k word erotica. Their shelf life is short. You put it out, it gets a handful of sales and borrows, then has a slow death tail. I've included an attachment of one of the books I put out. Granted it made me over $300 in October for literally an hour of work, I'd rather have it made me $300 over the course of the year, and every year, instead of here's your cash I'm out kind of deal.

Oh now I get it... Yeah I didn't know that. Building a list may help, but I am quite sure you are already building one. 50K ++ Fiction Novels, have more longevity? Or you haven't tried yet?

I am almost over with the reivising, on friday I am going to publish. I have in mind what my next 4 books are going to be about. (I will target a single especified niche, and build a list out of it)
After that I was thinking on outsourcing erotica and writing short novels, but I still need experience on the fiction field.

 

[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...

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Gabriel]

@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.

 

[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!

 

[Hicks]

Hey Aimee.
any updates?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[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...

 

[Hicks]

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...

That's brilliant. I actually think you are a very good writer even though I am not the target audience.
I think that reinvesting in something else is a very wise move. I started this late last year and now am thinking about ramping it up a little. For me the frustration is that once you release a book on Amazon there is short shelf life...you don't have full control.
I spent a lot of time in the library as well..but oddly I found it even more distracting in the end. It was the blooddy librarians! They just talk all the time. I just wanted to say. Shuuush!
Good luck and keep us posted. We are interested.

 

[Aimee]

That's brilliant. I actually think you are a very good writer even though I am not the target audience.
I think that reinvesting in something else is a very wise move. I started this late last year and now am thinking about ramping it up a little. For me the frustration is that once you release a book on Amazon there is short shelf life...you don't have full control.
I spent a lot of time in the library as well..but oddly I found it even more distracting in the end. It was the blooddy librarians! They just talk all the time. I just wanted to say. Shuuush!
Good luck and keep us posted. We are interested.

Aw, thank you. I really appreciate it! I know I'm not brilliant, but my only goal is to get better with each book.
Yeah, I completely agree. I'm going to start picking things out of KU and uploading on other vendors too, to see how that works; it should be interesting. I still want to move on to other ventures soon, though. My goal was never to be an 'author' or whatever, the main goal was to get some money to support myself and put into other things, but I still believe that KU is too much of a gold rush right now to divert my efforts too much.
Hahaha, I'm glad you feel the same!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MTF]

How is it going, @Aimee? How has the new KDP Select affected your business?

 

[Neutral]

Interesting Concept. Since I am not much of a writer I probably am not going for this route but it definitely inspired me!
Thanks a lot

 

[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.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Liana]

Thanks so much Aimee! This thread has filled me with inspiration and motivation to finally start publishing e-books. I've had the idea for a really long time, but after reading this, I finally got around to setting up a KDP account and am now writing my first short fiction book. You definitely need to just jump in to learn how it all works. So glad I've finally taken the plunge! My goal is to finish this story in the next 2 days and publish it, then start writing my next one immediately. I'm hoping with the first one I'll get a good idea of how the whole e-book publishing process works. I'm not expecting much from the first book, but as I get used to writing and adapting to my genre (romance), I'm hoping to get a decent number of sales. I'm aiming to write a minimum of 2K words per day and publish a book a week.

 

[ZeroTo100]

Hey,

Read some of the thread. Personally, if I was trying to earn a living publishing ebooks, I'd probably hire a writer so that I can focus on other areas of the business such as selling books. There are a few things you can probably do, one being press releases for your ebooks, paid ads, and even affiliates.

With amazon, you have to understand that your competing not just against publishers but internet marketers as well. Most of them give away books to prop up reviews so that they trick Amazons algorythem into moving them up the rank. This method also gives them tons of reviews which convinces people to buy. There is a blog I read by a writer who earns his living publishing ebooks. His name is Steve Scott and his blog is stevescottsite{dot}com. When I was fooling around with building an authority site, I used his blog as a reference.

One of the important things that you should be doing is building your email list. The list will enable you to engage with your readers. You can give a few books away and than pitch them on others. Amazon will drive a lot of traffic to your site but you shouldn't just rely on Amazon. If I were you and I really wanted to get serious in this business, i'd find the writers who are in your niche and follow them. Connect with their audience on sites like twitter.

Best of luck.

-Steve