Monthly Archives: February 2015

Self-Publishing Journey: Week 7

Week 7: Book Releases and Production Scheduling

I have learned to approach a book release schedule in self-publishing rather like a wedding. Pick your date and then start planning at least six months in advance. This is if you self-publish and the book is already complete. Traditional publishing is more like a one year or more timeline. With only one book to focus on, you can move things along faster.

Since it is the book I have in production now, I can use “Max’s Wild Night” as an example. The story was finished in November. That was a deadline I set because I wanted to officially launch the book on Max’s 10^th birthday: May 1, 2015. I have done that same type of thing with the books in the cat series, and I do lots of sales around the character’s real birthdates. It serves no purpose but being fun, and it makes me happy. You may have other things that drive the dates related to your book release. I really had to push myself to get the final draft done (a retreat was involved), but I’m glad I did. The rest of the process would have fallen behind otherwise.

Here’s basically how I have the self-publishing production process scheduled.

Book draft done by end of November.
Revision and editing done before Christmas vacation.
Beta readers doing their work over the vacation.
Time to let the book rest until mid-January. (Really. You need to step back.)
My final revisions/edits done by end of January.
Pause for income for guest house season to begin so I can pay contractors. This is important!
Manuscript to the editor by mid-February (already on her radar).
Cover design begun mid-February (already on her schedule).
Formatting & CreateSpace set up begins by the start of March.
Do newsletter offering free “Max” ebooks for reviews on Cats in the Mirror books & promoting new book as soon as cover is ready.
All drawings/photos done and in place by mid-March (spring break end).
Formatted book to ebook designer by late-March (after spring break).
Set up mini blog tour schedule by late-March.
Have paperback proof ordered from CreateSpace by first week in April, at the latest.
(Will there be a spring War Eagle Fair? Paperbacks will need to be ordered by second week in April to make it in time!)
Ebook versions ready for reviewers by second week in April.
Everything on amazon.com set up and ready to roll by April 24^th.
Create book release online event through Facebook by April 26^th.
Official book release on May 1^st. Happy Birthday, Max!

You can certainly give yourself exact dates if that helps motivate you. I have just learned that some things along the way can slow plans down. Book cover design is a big one. If you have a good designer, chances are pretty high that they will have other projects going. You won’t just be able to get yours back in two days. There is also some back and forth that may take a week or more once your project is started. We ended up having to delay the promotion of “Why Kimba Saved The World” by a few weeks because the designer we wanted was involved in another project. We had to wait our turn.

Getting your cover design going early is also important because you will need that cover to promote the book. It’s much more effective to say “Here’s my next book” and show a cool cover than it is to just talk about what the book will be. Your cover is your best marketing tool. That’s another reason to make sure it is awesome.

So far I am on track for “Max’s Wild Night.” I had been in touch with both the editor and cover designer to let them know when I was expecting to send them their part of the book so I could get a note in their schedule and find out if there were any conflicts. That helps everyone involved if you have definite release dates in mind.

That being said, you don’t have to make any special release dates. Odds are good you are not planning a physical book signing tour that needs dates set up months in advance. Linking to a holiday or personal event is just fun. It helps get you and others excited about the new book.

As far as the book release itself, don’t go overboard. If you have a party, you will mostly get your friends and family, and they will probably buy your book anyhow. Facebook live events can be fun. Give away prizes, but I would steer away from giving away copies of the new book. If folks think they might win a copy, they won’t buy a copy. By the time winners are announced, they will have moved on.

For the release of “At the Corner of Magnetic and Main” in September, we will be having a live event here on our property. First, I just want to have a party with my friends and fellow writers to celebrate. Second, the book is set locally and we have contacts in the business community. An event is a good chance to get the word out, get an article in the local papers, and sell some copies to people I might not have a chance to otherwise. I will also run an internet event that evening with video from the afternoon, including my live reading. That’s a chance to spread the love to friends and family who cannot possibly attend the live party. I’m sure I’ll be blogging about that when the time comes.

Just keep in mind that you are a very small publishing company of one. Don’t throw lots of money at an event unless you can be sure it is worth it. Blog tours are a less expensive and easier way to spread the word about your book, as mentioned in an earlier post.

Celebrate sharing your book with the world!

In Two Weeks: Freebies, KDP, & Discount Promotions

I won’t have time to blog next Monday because I’m attending the Ozark Writer’s League quarterly meeting on Saturday

and the Oscars (also known as a high holiday in my home) are on Sunday. It doesn’t really seem like anyone is reading these anyhow, so who will notice? I may blog about the OWL conference and some books I’m reading, but it won’t be part of the series.

I am on track for my writing goal for the month of 10,000 words on “Kimba’s Christmas,” and editing, cover creation, and artwork are underway for “Max’s Wild Night.” So let it snow. Just don’t let us lose power. I’ll keep writing.

Self-Publishing Journey: Week 6

Week 6: Live Events & Blog Tours

So now we are looking at the dreaded side of self-publishing for most writers: self-promotion. Writers didn’t used to have to deal with this. Your publishing company would toot your horn, promote your book, and you could show up very humbly and sign for adoring fans. Those days are gone, even for 99% of traditionally published authors.

I have a bachelor’s degree in public relations, so I know what needs to be done in this field. I’ve read some good books and follow some blogs of other authors and their journey. Some things have worked for us, some have not. What I can speak to specifically is promoting a book for elementary and early middle school age readers. It is a very specific market, and what may work for an adult book won’t work for me. I have done dozens of live events and set up blog tours for my first two books. Here’s what we have learned so far.

Blog Tours

Blog tours are an entirely separate beast from live events. When “Why Kimba Saved The World” released, I spent hours (I mean DAYS) setting up a blog tour. I screened carefully to make sure that the blogger wrote about children’s books and posted reviews consistently. Nearly everyone who agreed to take part in the tour did their part. I think there were about 10 of them. I made some great connections that I still keep in touch with, and we cross-promote each other. As far as all of that goes, it was a success. However, I don’t think any sales came from any of those posts. For “Vacation Hiro,” I set up a smaller blog tour, mostly of the sites who had already posted on “Kimba.” For Book 3, I did very little blog promotion. My big targets then were already established readers through social media and my newsletter.

I did get many, many reviews posted to amazon.com from those bloggers, especially for Book 1. That’s nothing to sneeze at (more on that in a later blog), but that’s not really the goal of a blog tour. You are supposed to be getting in front of new readers. I’m not sure blog tours, especially for kid’s books, work that way. At least not the ones you can set up on your own.

Paying for someone else to promote your books is an option on the blog tour front. The Mother-Daughter Book Review site has very reasonable packages, and they have a fantastic reputation. But it does feel rather like paying for a review (something I avoid), so I have not tried their services yet. That may change in the future.

When “Max’s Wild Night” comes out in May, I will definitely be in touch with bloggers, but the goal will be for reviews. The same will be true of “At the Corner of Magnetic and Main,” but it will be a whole new set of bloggers because this is an adult book. How much time I devote to finding them is questionable. I’ve made many connections through LinkedIn with those type of bloggers because I knew this book would come out one way or another. As long as it doesn’t become overly time consuming, I’m sure I’ll be working on connecting with them. I’ll try to coordinate the posts around the release date, but I’ll know more what to expect this time. If there are some sales, excellent. Mostly, I’ll be looking for reviews.

If you think a blog tour would be fun, go for it. There’s no harm, but you have to judge the amount of time you devote to it.

Live/Face-to-Face Events

Live events are by far our best sales venues for me, but it matters where we go and how much we have to spend to be there. We have learned, the hard way, that spending too much for any booth or table space will leave us disappointed. If we are going to have hotel costs involved, we are not going to make money. Promotion is all good and fine, but if you don’t sell enough books to cover costs you are not making money. That is our goal. This is a business for us, not a hobby. My time comes at a price. If I’m busy with something else, I’m not writing. That’s one of the things that has to weigh into every decision we make about events this year. Some goodwill and getting yourself in front of the right people is okay. Just watch how much you put into that. After the last two years of live events, we have reached some conclusions.

The War Eagle Fall Craft Fair was by far our most successful event. You can read my blog about it at this link. We sold nearly 100 books over the four days we were there, met lots of new and excited readers, and didn’t have to pay an arm and a leg for the space. We made a nice profit. Perfect. But it is only once a year. There is a much smaller spring fair (and we did reasonably well there too), but it may not be held this year. Large craft fairs like this are big on our agenda for 2015. I’ve kept my ears open and made notes on ones within driving distance. There are a couple in Fayetteville I will be investigating and maybe taking part in. People coming to these events are ready to buy something and are looking for unique items they can’t just find at their local store. Indie books are a great fit for them.
Targeted events can be successful—events that have some connection with your book. My books are about cats, so I got a booth at a local Cat Fancier’s competition event. Click here to read about that one specifically. Sales were very good and it was fun to be a part of, however, I paid for two hotel nights so all profits were sucked away. When it is held this year, I may go again, but I’ll have to suck it up and spend four hours on the road each day. This is one the CFO across the hall and I will have to debate. If he can come with me, that may make it worthwhile. There’s also the question, though, of whether it will be all the same people again. I sold a set of books to over half of the vendors with cats in the show. If they are all there again, I have a smaller new audience. These are the kind of things you have to consider before you dive in to something a second time, but targeted events are good to explore as long as the booth fee is not excessive.
Big conferences like the Arkansas Reading Association and the Association of Arkansas Librarians were major flops. It’s not so much because I didn’t sell any books, but the huge overhead costs and hotel stays sucked any profit away and cost us more than we made. My hope with both was that I would stir up interest in school visits. Just one would have made the cost worthwhile. That may still happen, but none so far. Librarians are also mostly interested in hardcover books that are on the AR list. My books don’t fit either category. These events were not worth the time and money involved. Big companies like HBJ can throw money at events like this (and they did, believe me), but we cannot.
Author events at libraries are mostly a waste of time. Folks go to the library for free books. I’m not knocking this. I am at my local library every other week with books and DVDs for fun and research. You might meet some new readers. That’s a bonus. You might sell a few books. That’s a great goal. The table is usually free. That’s always a good thing. You just have to decide how much your time is worth. I have sat at library events for hours and not had a soul even walk by. If we do any this year, we will make sure the library is big enough to draw traffic and be worth using time I could spend writing or doing other promotional work. At the end of this blog I’ll share an exception to the rule from a couple of days ago. Library events are on the “maybe” list.
Anything that has a mass garage sale feel or fundraising for something where folks are hoping to get treasures for a dollar are not worth the time. They want massive deals. They don’t want books. I’ve done a couple. I did sell a few books, but mostly to the other vendors. It’s not worth the time.
Book store events were a waste. I did one author signing at an indie book store when “Why Kimba Saved The World” released. No one came. Along with consignments (I’ll cover that massive waste of time/money in another blog), don’t bother with book stores unless you have a significant local connection. I may try to set up something at a local book store when “At the Corner of Magnetic and Main” comes out because it is set in our tourist town and has that draw and connection. Otherwise, don’t bother with bookstores. There are better ways to spend your time and money.
School book talks are in our hopeful pile. I haven’t chased this line of events too much because self-published books are not going to have a big pull with public schools. Early in 2014 I spent a day at a private school where I had worked in Houston. I was already in town for a family visit, so no hotel cost. The students and faculty know me. We had a great time, I talked to separate age groups and could focus what I had to say, and they sent home a flyer that resulted in excellent book sales. It was very successful, but every element to help that along was in place. Just to wander into a public school where they don’t know me or my books would probably not result in much. I have been invited to speak to the 5^th graders at our local school where I substitute teach a day or two a week (though only with the prek – second graders). That talk would be totally about community goodwill. I doubt many of the kids would go out and get my books. Frankly, I’d probably donate copies to the classrooms. I already did that for one first grade classroom where I’ve spent a few days and there are advanced readers who are ready for them. This is definitely not on the “business” side of things, but it is personal and I think it’s still worth the time because it’s only a few hours and makes for community goodwill—and it’s just nice for the kids involved. Doing this beyond my own community would really take some consideration. As I’ve read from many other kid lit authors, don’t let schools take advantage of you. If you are a professional writer, your time has some value.
Workshops where I am a speaker is my big goal for 2015. I am actually a well-trained public speaker and have presented full-day conferences all on my own. As I continue to write and publish, I am starting to get some areas where I have knowledge and experience to share in this business. You know, like about self-publishing. I’ve become more involved with two groups in the Ozarks who bring speakers in for local conferences, so I’m watching how they make their choices. Speakers send them proposals. Who knew? Getting a packet of my own together and looking for appropriate small conferences to start out with is on the agenda. These events can pay well or not so much, but you will nearly always have a chance to sell your books. I’ve watched people come out of talks and go right to the speaker’s book table to make a purchase. It’s a personal connection. Again, big goal for 2015. Stay tuned!

One kind of live event we have not tried yet is an actual book release party. I will be doing a live book release event/party for “At the Corner of Magnetic and Main,” along with a Facebook/Twitter release event that evening. Again, because this book has a local connection I think we can have a fun party, and I can invite local friends, authors, and business connections we have in town from our Chamber of Commerce (we run a guest house too). We can have it right here on our property in our pavilion. Sales at the event would be great, but it’s more about goodwill and celebrating a book that has been in the works a few years and is set in our town. As long as we keep our goals (and costs) reasonable, it will be worth it. I’m sure you’ll hear more about all of this in September, when the big day comes.

Kimberling Library Author Day

Here’s a specific example of a live event that was worth the time, even if sales were not amazing. On Saturday the 7^th I took part in an Author Day event at the Kimberling Area Library (near Branson, MO). This was the first time I had done it, but I knew they were hosting 40 authors, having guest speakers (including Roy Rogers, Jr.), and doing lots of promotion. I also knew other authors who were taking part. There was no table cost fee, and it only took us 45 minutes to get there, so there was very little risk if it was a complete bomb. I’d still have fun hanging around with my author friends. This event also was the kind of local goodwill that is worth taking the time for. I know people on the planning team and wanted to help make the event a success. We also learned that this library, which is really nice and well kept, is totally run by volunteers and gets no tax money. Definitely a cause worth supporting.

Kimba and Hiro’s travel reps pose with the library sign. They were happy to get out and about after a few months off.

I shared a table with my friend Gwen, so that make the day even better.

I shared a table with my friend Gwen, so that made the day even better. Check out her book, “Letting Go Into Perfect Love” at amazon.com!

There was a nice turnout!

As far as library events go, this one was very successful. Dozens of people wandered through to shop for books. The speakers were well attended and enjoyed. I sold 11 books total, but that was more than many of the other authors there. We also had the oddness of three different people buying only Book 2, “Vacation Hiro,” because they liked the cat on the cover. That’s never happened before!

She is a beautiful cat!

I can only hope they will love it and want to read the whole series. I got names for my mailing list. It was all good. We made a donation of a part of our sales back to the library. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Now, will I do this event again next year? I don’t know. I understand that they want to have a variety of authors participate for the same reason I may not do it again right next year—there will probably be mostly the same people attending next year and they want to see new authors. I will have two new books out by then, so that may weigh into our decision and whether they want me back. It was certainly worth having done.

Book Festival Events

One kind of event I have my eye on is something like the Texas Book Festival. The booth costs are high, but people coming to that event have one goal: to buy books. That’s where authors want to be! I was all set to attend the Texas Book Festival in 2015 and share booth space with a writer friend who has done it before. Our books would line up well together. It was all planned. But then they changed the date to be the exact same weekend as the War Eagle Craft Fair—our biggest sure-thing of the year. It was just too hard to justify missing it, and we might upset the organizer and have her give our booth space to someone else—they are hard to come by—, so I had to back out of the festival. But I still have my eye on it for 2016. I’ll have seven books to my name by the fall of 2016, if all goes as planned and the creek don’t rise, so it may be worth getting my own booth. I have family in Houston and Austin, so no hotel fees. This is one we will have to wrangle with in the future. I can envision Scott’s brow furrowing already.

Is there a Missouri Book Festival? I’ll have to look into that. The Arkansas Book Festival is more by invitation only, so I’ll have to find out whose eye I need to catch for that one, but that would involve a hotel stay. That alone may take it out of the running. This is another area to “stay tuned.” I’m sure more events will present themselves this year that we will have to weigh and decide on. No waste of money is our 2015 goal. We will be taking fewer chances, but we also may miss out on some good stuff. It’s a very fine line to walk, as it is with any business. Promotion is good, but it has to have a valuable outcome to make it worthwhile. We have learned a lot so far. We may have a long way to go.

Any thoughts to share on what has worked for you as far as blog tours and events? Share with everyone in the comments section!

Next Week: Book Release and Production Scheduling

I kind of skipped over this one because I had a live event to talk about, so we’ll circle back to that one—a subject I am up to my eyeballs in right now for “Max’s Wild Night”—next time.

Self-Publishing Journey: Week 5

Week 5: Where to Publish?

My answer to this is easy: CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing (which are both amazon.com). There are other places (LightningSource and BookBaby are the two main others), but after we here at Serenity Mountain Publishing have evaluated what we have done over the last few years I see no reason to go anywhere else. I did have “Why Kimba Saved The World” up on other sites for a while, but I saw very little in sales (if any) from places like Smashwords and Kobo. Where you sell your book is different than where you handle the publication process, of course, but I am happy just having all of my eggs in one simple, manageable basket at amazon.com.

Many people, especially authors, are all into hating on amazon.com these days because it has such a corner on the book market. It is the big, hairy elephant of book sales. But why hate? My feeling is that I need all the help I can get as an indie-author, so I’m just gonna jump on that big elephant and ride it around until it no longer serves my purposes. We are always poking at other options, I read what other authors are learning in their own journeys, but so far nothing has been compelling enough to drive me away from amazon.com.

Amazon.com publishes two kinds of books as two separate entities.

Let me be clear: CreateSpace = print books Kindle Direct Publishing = ebooks

My husband still has trouble with this and asks me questions about one when he means the other or calls it all amazon (maybe just to see the look on my face). They are linked, but they are separate files and book covers and set up.

Once your print book is formatted and ready, all you have to do is create a PDF and you are ready to roll. Setting up an author account at CreateSpace for your print books is not difficult. Block out a couple of hours and just go through the steps one by one. It’s better to start this set up before you format your book because there are set book sizes that are easiest to work with, and you’ll want to know what size you are going with before you start formatting. That’s one of those hundred decisions you are going to have to make. I made this error with “Miss Fatty Cat’s Revenge,” and even being off by a few bits of an inch made things a mess that I had to go back and redo. Major time gobble I could have avoided. Things also get tricky with the book cover size and how to format that cover PDF so the spine fits just perfectly and the back text is centered. My cover designer has this art figured out, and I leave it to her.

The ebook account at Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is a separate step. You only need a JPG file for the cover (there is no back of book like in the print version), and the book file will be a totally separately formatted MOBI or PDF file.

With both of these formats, you can update the files as often as you like. When I have put out a new book, I add the name to the “also by” section at the front of the book and “buy” links to the new books at the end of the kindle version. This new ebook won’t go out to people who already downloaded, but it will be available for those who get it from that time forward (or who specifically ask for the new version through customer service).

There is one exception to this. If you discover that there is some MAJOR error in your ebook, KDP may resend it to everyone who has purchased it. Yes, I discovered this the hard way. I made a minor edit to part of the “Kimba” ebook. Somehow, someway that was never quite explained, in the editing process the ebook designer managed to drop the first paragraph of EVERY chapter in the book. I only checked what I asked them to change and then ran a BookBub free promo where 14,000 copies of this awful version were downloaded. It was a few months later when I was going through to update all of the black-and-white photos to color ones that I noticed something wasn’t quite right. I’m sure you can imagine the horror when I realized what had happened. I think there were some tears. Yep.

Fortunately, this is such an egregious error that I was able to contact KDP customer service and they agreed to resend it. This took six weeks. All that time those nasty, missing-text copies were being read (and, amazingly, reviewed well). Sigh. Yes, this is a lesson in always double and triple checking everything, but it is also a lesson in the fact that amazon.com is willing to work with authors when the unforeseen, major errors come into play.

At this time, I’m a big fan of KDP Select. It gives me promotions for my free or discount days, and I get 70% commission on sales. I can also do some free days if I want without trying to trick the system. I do see some activity through the Prime lending library at about the same price that my normal commission would be, so it’s all good for now. Being a part of this program does mean that you cannot list your book for sale anywhere but amazon.com, but I’m okay with that. I never saw any worthwhile activity from other sites anyhow. This could change when we reevaluate again, but for now I’m happy.

I also love CreateSpace’s “print on demand” feature. I can order one copy or 400 copies or 4,000 copies. It all depends on what I need for upcoming events or sales through my web site. No more do you need to order 1,000 copies to start a print book. You can order and fix errors along the way (you are sure to find some) and then order more later on.

I’ll leave the how to make the most of your set up at both CreateSpace and KDP to other sites. I still go in and tweak stuff and add review notes and change categories on KDP to see if it changes my sales numbers. There are whole books devoted to how to make the most of these setups. Mostly what we have learned with that is don’t try to play it too much. Call your book what it is. Put it in the right category. My biggest problem with having a children’s book about cats is that I have the whole “Warrior” series and all of its forms ahead of me in the rankings at all times. They take up around 30 slots. I did, however, beat them all when I did a 99 cent sale on “Vacation Hiro” through BookBub.com and hit #1 for three days straight. Yay, best seller status! Fight it out fairly and sell your book for what it is, not something that has fewer items in the category because it might get you a higher ranking. You may show up earlier, but if you are not what those readers want, they will ignore you.

Be sure you set up an amazon.com author page, claim your books so they show up on your page, and link your kindle and print copies so they show up together on searches. Here’s mine, so you can see how it works. If the thought of all of this freaks you out, one of those book guides we talked about in an earlier blog will be happy to help or talk you through it.

Where to publish has been the easiest part of our analysis of this self-publishing journey. We are thrilled with where we are and have no plans of changing that. For now. It can all change in the blink of an eye, so we stay alert.

Next Week: Live Events & Blog Tours

I’m going to move this one up in the list because I have a live event over the weekend and can share that experience too.

Writing Notes:

Winter is supposed to be my productive time while the guest house and book events are quieter. A book I’m proofing for Pen-L Publishers is ready for the final go-through this week. “Max’s Wild Night” is heading to the editor next week and book cover creation will start mid-month. So exciting! I’ll begin formatting by the end of February. Max will have his day on May 1^st.

I have also submitted my MG/YA biography on Betty White to a local publisher. My goal for a busy February is to reach 10,000 words on “Kimba’s Christmas.” I don’t have release for that scheduled until Octoberish of 2016, but there are plot points between that and “Slinky Steps Out” (April 2016) that need unwrangling. I am also working on vocabulary activities for all three Cats in the Mirror books for homeschool and classroom use. I’d love to explore creating audio books for them as well, but time may get away from me. Things just keep moving forward. Never stop writing!

And I’d love to have you join me at the Kimberling Area Library on Saturday, February 7^th for their annual Author Event. With over 40 authors, speakers, and fun activities planned, it should be an outstanding afternoon. Come on down!