Turning fiction into a business opportunity

[joanna]

Thought I really need to stop hijacking other people's threads for thinking out loud. So here goes my attempt at some public accountability.

I really like the term Writer-Publisher. It better reflects my work as well as my future goals than something like writer (definitely not aspiring ), or self-publisher. Here's a summary of my current status:

• 7 books published
• 3 pen names (2 fiction, 1 non fiction)
• several books in the works (fiction and non-fiction)

Quick background

I'm web developer/designer turned book cover designer these days. I started publishing about two years ago with non-fiction. Decided to jump onto fiction even before half the Warrior Forum was selling WSOs about it. Though I have to admit that was more of a passion based decision than something I intended to quickly turn into a regular income.

Although I'm not a native speaker, my education was in EFL. Still, speaking a language and being able to tell compelling stories isn't quite the same thing. Hence I spent a lot of the last two years learning a lot about the technical side of writing and storytelling.

My goal

I would like to achieve the following:
1) Establish a small, niche focused publishing house called "Wing & Fang" (with my love for fantasy and paranormal you can probably guess what the focus would be )
2) Improve my book income, so that I can drop my "day job"* and focus the time gained by that on writing and 3)
3) Develop the set of tools for writers I've been planning for over a year

*OK, I'll admit, I don't really have a day job per se. But the stuff that currently pays the bills takes more time than I'd like it to, and until I can replace that income, ideally with 2) & 3) then ell, I'm stuck with it.

With that in mind you can expect progress updates on not just strictly writing, as I'm trying to buckle up and start getting things done.

My Books

When it comes to pen names I'm not shy about revealing my main one, if anyone wants to check out the books you can look here for WIPs (working on The Hunt now), and links to published books are on my site.



I'm considering redoing the fantasy covers, since I want something more obviously "epic fantasy". These don't seem to get much attention (though I do have a certain sentiment for these...). We'll see how that goes (got someone working on the illustrations soon).

Stuff I Use

I thought I'll include a handy list of tools:

• Scrivener (PC) - use it for writing and planning (the note cards are fun to use)
• MS Word - I find it works great as a final draft revision, tend to pick up more staff than Scrivener's spell-check, and the change of layout helps your brain find problems you might have overlooked before. Since you can use it to submit to Kindle and Smashwords likes a .doc it's a nice format to keep the final manuscript in and use it as base for conversions.
• Calibre - took me a while to get a hang of this, but it will give you all the formats you need (and more) to submit to sites like Kobo (direct epub), AllRomance (epub, mobi, lit, etc.) and what else you might need. Though pdf I do directly from MS Word (it looks nicer, Calibre for me is a pain to even get a decent looking pdf, they all feel clunky).
• Sigil - Great tool if you want to mess with epubs directly. Autmates some of the stuff you'd have to do by hand if using plain html.
• http://salesrankexpress.com/ - Go here to check for adult filter on Amazon.
• DragonNaturallySpeaking (DNS) - dictation software, still trying to get used to this one. The recognition is really good, I just have to overcome the awkwardness of talking out loud.
• Dropbox / SkyDrive / GoogleDrive / etc. - if you don't backup your files, it will come to bite you in the *** sooner or later. Better to lose a few words than half your manuscript if say you hard drive fails completely...
• I'll add more if I think of something or find something else...

I do consider myself lucky in the sense, that I can do a lot of the work involved in publishing books myself at at least a decent level: covers, formatting, websites, promo materials, etc. I still do hire an editor though.


What I Struggle With

There's quite a few things I need to improve on, some I'm happy to work on; others, I really wish there was a magic button for...

• Increase word count - seems I'm averaging about 500/h which isn't great, also need to get to more than 1k words per days
• Marketing - *gasp* really not my thing...
• Defining audience and genre - this is mainly for the pen name above, my other books are pretty well defined (commercial work does that for you I guess). But for this one every time I think I finally know what these are, it just, hmm doesn't quite work.
• Motivation - we all probably have those days, when you look at the manuscript and want to throw it out the window...
• Sales copy - I think my blurbs are getting better, but still need improvement in this area
• Procrastination & time management - sometime's there's too many cute cat pics, other times I overbook myself and after client work there's no time for writing
• Managing the mailing list - I never grew it much, and not really sure what to do with it at the moment for those ten people on it...

I haven't joined NaNoWriMo this year for a few reasons, but still going for a 50k+ word count - just more of a collective across a variety of writing projects (blogs, fiction, etc.). OK, I think that'll do for an intro. Congratulations to anyone who read this far

 

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[britnidanielle]

Glad you started a post! Good luck!

 

[Thriftypreneur]

Can definitely relate on the procrastination and motivation thing. Writing and procrastination seem to go hand-in-hand for some reason. To such a degree, that it's unlike anything else I've experienced in my past entrepreneurial ventures. It's... odd!

 

[joanna]

Glad you started a post! Good luck!

Thanks!

@Thriftypreneur I know, right? It's this weird thing. On one hand the story sits in my head screaming to be written, but then the other side of my brain generates a thousand excuses why do it later. Then again once I force myself to do a few lines of writing it just goes from there. Like with many things just getting round to it is more of a problem than actually doing it.

 

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[joanna]

I guess it's time for an update. Since I've decided to make this a Fake NaNoWriMo adventure month I've been keeping more stats than usual on my writing. For those interested: Update 1, Update 2, Update 3.

A few take aways so far.

Writing speed. Not sure what it is but I just can't get more than around 500 words per hour in fiction. Even when I'm on a roll I think the most I had was just around 600, but with lots of typos I had to spend time revising after that. And I'm not the slowest typist in general. So it doubles the frustration. Doesn't seem to matter either whether I do just a quick 30-60min writing block or give it more hours in a row to counterbalance the "starting up" slowdown effect.

Fiction / Work balance. The month has been good in terms of clients, but it does seem to make my fiction output suffer. I think I need to work on my early day procrastination, to get things done earlier, so that I'm not completely brain dead by the time I finally get to my fiction-writing-time. Since the speed doesn't seem to vary much as per the point above maybe try and get a two to three half hours before and in-between other work.


Since I only have two books under my erotica pen name I'm not doing much promotion for that at the moment, but was pleasantly surprised to see a few sales trickle in despite that. Related to that, last year I started on a mini-series of interconnected Christmas romances, but had to put it aside for various reasons. Given my writing speed, I'm now wondering if I should just spice them up and release them under my erotica pen name?

There seems to be a benefit to releasing on a short cycle. So I thought two pen name might be more manageable in terms of that cycle than three. How many pen names do you guys have and how often do you release under each? Or do you use one, do a series, and then move to another pen name with a new niche?

 

[santa]

but I just can't get more than around 500 words per hour in fiction.

Joanna, 500 words is a GOOD rate...especially if they are a solid 500. Don't beat yourself up too much when you hear of others who can rip up the word count. If you can improve it great...but 500 is a good solid amount. 3 hours a day= 1.5k, =over 10k a week. That's very solid!

10k a week= half a million words in a year!
I mentioned in another thread that Stephen King supposedly writes 1,500 words a day, and has done so for 25 years. If we rounf that down to 20 years, that's still 10 MILLION WORDS...all from 1,500 words a day.

 

[COSenior]

There seems to be a benefit to releasing on a short cycle. So I thought two pen name might be more manageable in terms of that cycle than three. How many pen names do you guys have and how often do you release under each? Or do you use one, do a series, and then move to another pen name with a new niche?

Thought I'd answer this question, then move on to some observations. Since you've said you're writing in erotica, I'll echo what HfR and others have said, and what my experience has borne out. With a small catalog, your sales drop off significantly in a short period of time, so yes, a short publication schedule is probably a good idea at least until you have significant numbers of titles up. I'm thinking at least 20. I'm now trying to publish a 20k+ novella every two to three weeks. I have a similar time crunch to yours because I write for a client 20 hours a week right now, soon to be 30. At the moment, I have one pen name. If and when I add another will depend on the agreements that I reach with my client in the future for more work. I had two in mind, but recent developments may mean I take on a third and set my original one on the back burner for a while.

Now, for writing speed. I know you have seen me state my production rate, but let me say that it has been only recently that it has taken off like that. I probably did about the same as you when I started. Part of what has increased it is the increased typing speed and accuracy gained from practice, and part I attribute to the fact that I now do a detailed scene map, using the word count from a beat sheet as targets. I no longer have to stop typing to visualize the next scene...I just check the scene map. So, don't worry. As Santa has said, that's good production, and based on my experience, I'll bet it gets even better.

 

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[joanna]

3 hours a day= 1.5k, =over 10k a week

Therein lies the problem I plan to write 2h per day, but even that sometimes, well doesn't happen. Working from home does have it's downsides.

With a small catalog, your sales drop off significantly in a short period of time, so yes, a short publication schedule is probably a good idea at least until you have significant numbers of titles up. I'm thinking at least 20.

At the moment, I have one pen name.

Yep. That was my thinking. Since I already have two pen names, and I'm not going to mix my SFF with erotica, even if one of the characters does get the label of "Dragon Whore". I can't really justify spending time on maintaining one more persona for the sake of marketing and social media.


Thanks for the kind words to both of you. What often stops me writing faster is having to look up words, I try to tell myself to just ignore it and come back to it later, but sometimes it's hard when you have it just at the tip of the tongue, yet still have to refer to a dictionary. Though I try to just plop a giant "XXX" in the middle of a sentence and keep writing when I can resist the urge.


On a different note. Author newsletters/mailing lists. What do you guys do with yours, how often do you post? I'm trying to revive mine and start building it up. But would be nice to get some opinions on what works in that department.

 

[ChickenHawk]

Author newsletters/mailing lists. What do you guys do with yours, how often do you post? I'm trying to revive mine and start building it up. But would be nice to get some opinions on what works in that department.

Great questions! I'd love to hear more about this too.

 

[JonathanUK]

This is a great thread, Joanna. Thanks for the food for thought.

 

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[joanna]

Here's the numbers for last week if anyone is interested.

Well, from the looks of it I won't reach my 50k goal. Ah well, might try again in December.

Overall I had a ghostwriting client approach me, and I've been writing for him, so had to put my own book on hold at the moment. The amount of non-fiction work has been way too high recently for me to do both. But that lead me to wonder what are the rates on the market at the moment? Especially when you don't live in India or the Philippines...? I noticed a few people in this subforum said they ghostwrite, is that fiction or non-fiction (or both?). Would be nice to know what's the going rate per word (or do you charge based on other criteria?), maybe via PM if you don't want to share publicly.

Since I still haven't gotten around to reviving my ten people mailing list, not much I can say about that yet. Have been toying with an idea to maybe do an autoresponder sequence with things like free wallpapers, shorts, etc. Any other ideas what you could give away to your fans?

 

[jimr]

How about getting some of your covers turned into posters and sign them for the first ten fans that reply to your email?

 

[Thriftypreneur]

How about getting some of your covers turned into posters and sign them for the first ten fans that reply to your email?

That's a pretty neat idea. Even if not for the fans, I'd love to have some of my cover art up in my office. Any idea where to get stuff like this done?

 

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[jimr]

Thrifty, are you in the US? If so, I guess you'll something along the lines of high street graphics companies who will convert pretty much any image you want into a poster (as long as there's no copyright infringement).

 

[Chris R]

That's a pretty neat idea. Even if not for the fans, I'd love to have some of my cover art up in my office. Any idea where to get stuff like this done?

I can. PM if interested. I also can manufacture custom bookmarks to any shape with any desired printing and marketing printed on it.


If you wanted custom bookmarks that you mailed to everybody who purchased from you shaped like your avatar, I can do that. I can even cut the "t" out, put creases in it, cut other images out of it. And do it for pennies on the dollar without waste!

 

[COSenior]

Have been toying with an idea to maybe do an autoresponder sequence with things like free wallpapers, shorts, etc. Any other ideas what you could give away to your fans?

I see a lot of indie romance writers ordering tiny, charm-sized replicas of their book covers, and making bookmarks with them. Not only a cool piece of swag for the fan, but the fact that the author actually made it with her own hands I'm sure would be something they'd value. On the other hand, that's not writing, which is why I haven't done it yet. I like the other ideas you've been given, but cheapskate that I am, I'd go with the things you can make quickly on your own, like the wallpaper or other graphics, and free short stories on a regular basis. I've also seen people offer deleted scenes, sneak peeks at works in progress, early cover reveals and other things that let fans feel like INSIDERS without costing much. Another idea I saw was to do character development on Pinterest and invite fans to follow you there. Understand, I haven't implemented ANY of this yet. Would be eager to hear what you find is well-received.

 

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[RHL]

Why are you using multiple pen names? Isn't that basically diluting your brand? Couldn't it deter repeat customers from finding your next publication?

 

[joanna]

Great ideas for the newsletter guys. Keep them coming. How often would you send out emails to your fanbase?

Some of the things that require a bit of an investment, might not be best for a newsletter, but are great extras for limited edition book promos and such.

Why are you using multiple pen names? Isn't that basically diluting your brand? Couldn't it deter repeat customers from finding your next publication?

I'm using them exactly for branding reasons.

My niche diet recipes are very unlikely to get me fantasy readers, and my fantasy readers aren't likely to buy books on design and techy stuff (OK, the last one might work, but it could lead to confusion and makes marketing awkward).

In theory I could combine SFF fiction pen name with the erotica fiction pen name, as the writing style is not that different, though the content IS. And generally mixing erotica with anything else isn't a great idea for a variety of reasons I did however decide to skip a separate romance pen name, and will just spice those up and roll it under the erotica author.

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

Ahhhh Joanna! You finally started one

I'm glad. Subbed.

 

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[joanna]

Update time. Well, not much to report on. Feel like such a flake. Final numbers for my fake NaNoWriMo experiment. http://www.dreamdevourer.com/blog/fanowrimo-update-5/

If the last week of November was bad, then first week of December is going even worse. Focusing on the ghostwriting and a few covers for clients, but time has somehow slipped through my fingers. It doesn't help that while trying to experiment with alternative sleeping patterns I flipped my waking time. Feels weird to sleep at night again. Somehow I'm really unproductive during the day.

On a more positive note looks like the illustrator will soon start on the first of my covers (having the fantasy ones redone). Still not sure what to do with the newsletter so sitting on that till I have a bit more time / actual stuff to update on.

 

[COSenior]

Your point in the blog post about 'losing' words in replies and time in reading is something I've thought about. It seems I can't prevent myself from weighing in on any subject that catches my interest. Never thought of tracking that writing, though. Don't beat yourself up too badly; it seems to me that you're doing very well production-wise considering you put your clients first. Get enough sleep, whatever you do and whenever you get it--sleep deprivation causes all sorts of problems that no one needs.

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

Hey Joanna! How're things going?

 

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[joanna]

Not much to update about recently do have been quiet. I'll probably post numbers at the end of the monh, but it's been rough. Catching up on ghostwriting. Had to postpone my own stuff nearly completely since I realized my taxes are due, uhm this month, and I still haven't done the paperwork. So that took a good portion of last week. Bleh, I hate paperwork.

Once I do my portion of ghostwriting for tonight, I got to start planning that short story for the anthology that is due 1st of Jan. It's only 6k, so if I don't procrastinate too much it should be doable in about a week.

Book sales are miserable across the board, which does affect my state of mind and writing motivation. I'm happy for my sis who's been recently selling like crazy (he he he it does help that I'm an investor and get a cut from the profit), but at the same time it's hard not to start wondering what is wrong with my own books then. Put up some Christmas decorations to brighten the mood.

I think I've seen another person doing fantasy in the progress threads so it will definitely be nice to see how non-romance/non-erotica writers are doing and since that's my genre maybe share some marketing techniques that are appropriate to that audience.

UPDATE:
So after a bit of a struggle I pushed myself to do the outline for the short story.
Since it's 6k max, I've decided to have four 1.5k parts (whether they will be single scenes, I'm not quite sure, as these things tend to be a bit fluid). First part is the first act, second part is the first half of the second act, third part is the second half of the second act, and the fourth part will the the third act. It always feels a bit odd when I'm being structured like this. I've done little one sentence summaries for each part and am pretty happy with the character arc for this. Since I've been mulling over this story in my head for quite a while, some scene elements are really clear in my mind, so hopefully I'll be able to write it quickly. Still don't have a title for it though. I do hate that part.

So, this leads to my question for today. How do people come up with good titles? And do you do it before or after you write your story (or in the middle)?

 

[COSenior]

So, this leads to my question for today. How do people come up with good titles? And do you do it before or after you write your story (or in the middle)?

Great question, and I'll be watching for the answers. I usually have a working title that describes the theme of the story, but they're seldom catchy. Most of the time, I come up with the final title after the story is finished, but I have no idea whether my titles are good or not. Not enough sales to make a judgment on whether it's the covers or the titles that's holding me back. One thing I have done, though, is take note of the trends in titles in my genre. Right now, there are a lot of gerunds being thrown around. "Falling Into" and "Crashing Into" seem to be the most common. The question is, have the authors piggybacked on success, or branded themselves as copycats? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

So, this leads to my question for today. How do people come up with good titles? And do you do it before or after you write your story (or in the middle)?

I usually try to have my title and description already done before I even start on the outline. I usually get a few good ideas and from there I tinker with what I feel best describes what I want to write about the most.

It's either that or if you want a very calculated approach and aren't afraid to spend some $$ with it, you could go the Split A/B route with Google Adwords where you come up with a select few titles you're interested in using and putting it up as a headline in the payperclick ad. The one who gets the most clicks should be continously tested even further with another A/B test until it yields a higher click through rate of atleast 50.

BUT that just takes way too long and takes up way too much finances to get a 'title' going since Amazon sales doesn't just relate to Titles but cover and description as well.

Just my take

 

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[joanna]

Thanks for chiming in. I think sometimes I have a title (or at least a working one) come to me early, other times the working title is so lame that I definitely need more work in that department. Like, one of the prequels so far is just referred to by the name of the main character, and given that's "Twee Yra Antra" I can't really stick with it

I kind of like DWS's idea of doing "half-titles" as calls them, though I think that works better as an inspiration for a story, rather than if you already have something brewing in your head / started writing a story.

On the topic of titles I've been pretty set on "The Hunt" for the next book, but today my sis suggested changing it to "Feral". The new cover will have a feral child on it, so maybe it will suit better?

Finally got started on the short for the anthology. Recording my progress, and process, as I go along. I thought it might be fun to share those details - though I have to say trying to record the screen while I type made me extremely self-conscious (just reminds me how maaaany typos I make as I go).

Wrote nearly 700 words in an hour for that project. Quite surprised. Hope I can keep that speed since it's due by the end of the month, and we all know what a time-sink holidays can be

Ghostwriting project moving forward too.

 

[Mark Anthony Le]

Thanks for chiming in. I think sometimes I have a title (or at least a working one) come to me early, other times the working title is so lame that I definitely need more work in that department. Like, one of the prequels so far is just referred to by the name of the main character, and given that's "Twee Yra Antra" I can't really stick with it

I kind of like DWS's idea of doing "half-titles" as calls them, though I think that works better as an inspiration for a story, rather than if you already have something brewing in your head / started writing a story.

On the topic of titles I've been pretty set on "The Hunt" for the next book, but today my sis suggested changing it to "Feral". The new cover will have a feral child on it, so maybe it will suit better?

Finally got started on the short for the anthology. Recording my progress, and process, as I go along. I thought it might be fun to share those details - though I have to say trying to record the screen while I type made me extremely self-conscious (just reminds me how maaaany typos I make as I go).

Wrote nearly 700 words in an hour for that project. Quite surprised. Hope I can keep that speed since it's due by the end of the month, and we all know what a time-sink holidays can be

Ghostwriting project moving forward too.

Great job!

What's the story about for you the switch from 'The Hunt' to "Feral"? Feral brings up Werewolves IMO haha. I have no idea why.

And wow cool idea! Any reason for beginning to record your writing process?

 

[joanna]

Here's the blurb so far:
"An orphaned dragon girl haunted by her past and stalked by something sinister hiding in the forest struggles to survive and find her way home. But lack of food and shelter are the least of this four-year-old’s worries when the creature made of wilderness gets a taste for her blood. Can she survive against the odds in a place where a strange voice is her only ally."

It's a bit of a survival story with the theme of retaining humanity. "The Hunt" was a bit of a play here (but maybe as usual I'm being too subtle) since when the book starts she is hunted by people, and later on by the creatures, while by the end she is the one doing the hunting.

The idea to record progress? I've seen a few people doing an "over the shoulder" type of thing before, and I thought I might give it a go. Even if just to document things for myself. It does force you to be a bit more clear why you are doing certain things and to be more structured.

 

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[ChickenHawk]

Book sales are miserable across the board, which does affect my state of mind and writing motivation. I'm happy for my sis who's been recently selling like crazy (he he he it does help that I'm an investor and get a cut from the profit), but at the same time it's hard not to start wondering what is wrong with my own books then. Put up some Christmas decorations to brighten the mood.

I think I've seen another person doing fantasy in the progress threads so it will definitely be nice to see how non-romance/non-erotica writers are doing and since that's my genre maybe share some marketing techniques that are appropriate to that audience.

So, this leads to my question for today. How do people come up with good titles? And do you do it before or after you write your story (or in the middle)?

It sounds like your sis writes in a different genre? I wonder if some genres are hot at different times of the year, or based on the competition at any given time. It will be interesting to see if any long-term trends develop, such as your genre is hotter during one season, while your sis's genre is hotter in another. Hard to say if this makes any difference at all, but it might be worth looking at.

About titles, I usually have a title in mind when I start out, and then it changes entirely by the time I'm done writing. For two of my recent kids' books, I actually changed the titles twice after they were published. Did it help? Eh, hard to say.

 

[ChickenHawk]

Book sales are miserable across the board, which does affect my state of mind and writing motivation. I'm happy for my sis who's been recently selling like crazy (he he he it does help that I'm an investor and get a cut from the profit), but at the same time it's hard not to start wondering what is wrong with my own books then. Put up some Christmas decorations to brighten the mood.

I think I've seen another person doing fantasy in the progress threads so it will definitely be nice to see how non-romance/non-erotica writers are doing and since that's my genre maybe share some marketing techniques that are appropriate to that audience.

So, this leads to my question for today. How do people come up with good titles? And do you do it before or after you write your story (or in the middle)?

It sounds like your sis writes in a different genre? I wonder if some genres are hot at different times of the year, or based on the competition at any given time. It will be interesting to see if any long-term trends develop, such as your genre is hotter during one season, while your sis's genre is hotter in another. Hard to say if this makes any difference at all, but it might be worth looking at.

About titles, I usually have a title in mind when I start out, and then it changes entirely by the time I'm done writing. For two of my recent kids' books, I actually changed the titles twice after they were published. Did it help? Eh, hard to say.