I’m back with another response to a blog post. This one is called The Completely Backwards Way to Amazing Self-Publishing Success and it’s over on The Book Designer blog.

Wow. There are so many things I want to respond to.

First, love the idea of Imaginary Blog Articles.

Second, I agree about researching the market. My only issue with that is that if traditional publishers have researched the market and therefore know what should sell well, why do so many books lose money? Over on Forbes.com today I read that 80-90% of books lose money. So while I am all for researching the market (it should be required!) at some point you have to jump in with both feet and hope you float. At that point you will have something new and incredible on your side. You have information you didn’t have before. You’ll have statistics on how well that idea/topic/genre sells and you will hopefully have feedback. Then the goal is to make the most out of both.

Available now…

‘Yes, I’m a “real” author. My bank statement says so.’ Pins!

Get yours now. Only $1.50!

Coming soon: ‘Yes, I’m a “real” author. The IRS says so.’ pins.

One of the things I find extraordinary about the path to publication is all the ideas you’ll discover along the way. Sometimes I’ll read something that will click with me and I’ll save it for later. Other times I will stumble accross the exact piece of information I needed at that moment.

My latest find?

I came across a great video from author Elizabeth Gilbert and it really spoke to me. I love what she says about embracing a power outside of yourself. For me, I know that luck has a great part to play not only in my writing but in my career. Hardwork of course, is a large part too.

This video is almost twenty minutes, but well worth a watch.

As with any time you have success, I think it’s natural to worry that you’ll never be successful again. You finished your novel, will you be able to write another one? You sold your book, will a publisher buy your next one? You sell X number of copies of your latest release, will you ever hope to sell that many again?

Anxiety, a writer’s middle name. Or perhaps, my middle name.

I’ll leave you with a final thought:

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. ~Sylvia Plath

Selena

PS. If you enjoyed this post, why not sign up to my newsletter? I promise to be entertaining.

The first four books I released on my own were priced at $.99 which I think is appropriate since they are short stories and short novellas. The fifth book I released by myself is much longer than the first four. At least double. So I decided to try out some new pricing.

Since I wanted the book to be $2.99 with an early buyers discount I set the original price at $1.99. A happy middle ground. Or so I thought.

What I’ve learned is that $1.99 is a wasteland. You don’t get the advantages of the $.99 insta-buy. And you don’t get the 70% royalty rate of a $2.99 book. You’re stuck in the middle, not selling as many copies and not making the bigger money either.

So what do I plan to do about it? I have a new book coming out tomorrow, the long awaited Mated to a Cajun Werewolf. I plan to offer it and all my other releases at $.99 for the weekend as a Tax-Break sale. Then Seduced and Mated will be moved up to the $2.99 price point. I’ll be interested to see where sales go from there.

But from now on I plan on sticking to $.99 or $2.99+ for my releases as I can see no good reason at this point to offer anything in between those two key price points.

Let’s look at the numbers.

Comparing The Cajun’s Captive($.99) with Seduced by a Cajun Werewolf($1.99) on the Nook. (Kindle and Smashwords numbers are not included here.)

First 8 days on sale:

TCC – 800 copies

SBACW – 643 copies

At first glance the numbers look good. And I’m making more money per copy of SBACW than TCC. Now something to note. On the 8th day TCC sold 484 copies on the Nook. SBACW sold 114 on the 8th day. To date the highest SBACW has sold in a single day is 156.

First 16 days

TCC – 3020

SBACW – 1441

More math.

3020 * $.99 = $2989.80 (40% royalty rate of that = $1195.92)

1441 * $1.99 = $2867.59 (40% royalty rate of that = $1147.04)

So not only have I lost potential readers, I’ve lost roughly $50.

Let’s try a projection. $2.99 for SBACW. Assume that my sales reduce by half, again.

700 * $2.99 = $2093 (65% royalty rate = $1360.45)

Now someone check my math but it appears that at the reduced purchase rate (a projection of course – it could be higher or lower, who knows) I would still make me more money.

Does it bother you when an author doesn’t have a picture on their website or Facebook account?

It’s never bothered me. In fact, I hardly ever noticed. Really the only time I pay much attention is when I can’t figure out what in the world their picture is. And the pictures on twitter are so small I can’t really get a good look at your mug anyway.

Because of that lack of interest, I’ve been rather surprised lately at the number of folks who want a picture of me. I’m not a celebrity like Reese Witherspoon and I certainly don’t have Angelina Jolie’s sexy pout. So why would anyone want to see a picture of me?

Kristen Lamb talks about using a headshot as part of your branding on her blog and the overwhelming majority of her comments were in the same vein. Show yourself! The question of why you wouldn’t want to show yourself came up. I have a couple of theories on this.

First of all: security. I know an author who’s ex husband stalks her. Not a nice dude. And she’s actually pretty well know in the romance world. But she goes under a pen name and doesn’t use her photo.

Privacy. Some people just don’t want to show their face to the world. Nothing wrong with that. Doesn’t bother me.

Pen names. If you’re using a pen name you might do it to protect your identity or the identity of those around you. So it follows that you wouldn’t want to flash a picture of yourself all of the internet like a real estate agent on a billboard.

So what do you think? Does it bug you when an author doesn’t include a headshot?

At least it is, according to my spam filter.

After I prepared my latest newsletter I had it send me a draft, as usual. This draft is sent only to me so I can make sure everything looks okay before *gulp* it gets sent to all my newsletter subscribers.

Today’s subject line read: New Free Read Chapter, Coupon for Seduced

I kept waiting for that draft to hit my inbox. Waited, waited, and waited some more. This should have been a quick process! I contacted the all knowing Ally. “Check your spam filter?” Oh! Duh.

And there it was…actually, there they were. The first draft I sent and then the follow up draft I sent later because the first never showed.

Having read an article about paying close attention to your wording for things like subject lines and sign up forms I thought perhaps a change was in order.

New subject line: New Chapter of Ready & Willing, Plus Coupon for Seduced

Send new draft and there it sits in my inbox.

So, a quick note to all the authors in the audience, be careful about putting “free” in the subject line of your email. I know it’s catchy to an actual reader, but it might not make it through the spam filter. #lessonlearned

Question: Do you know of any words that will get your email trapped in a spam filter? Share below.

For the authors in the crowd wanting a follow up to this post about my new splash page I’m happy to report 33 new subscribers in the last 24 days. Let’s hope these results continue and that my new subscribers are enjoying my free reads!

Are you signed up to get access to my free reads? No? Why not! Free reads, people. What’s not to love? Sign up here.

Readers, Dee Carney has a list of free reads on her blog and here are a few more I’ve compiled.

I’ve seen very few writers publicly discuss something that I think many of us experience at one point or another during our careers. Jealousy.

Candace Havens recently discussed Writers’ Karma over at the genreality blog and she’s right on target in my opinion. So often, as readers and writers, we might poke fun at a genre or book we don’t like. I’ll admit to this. Usually it’s out of jealousy (bad author!) or because of how others have treated me (that whole do onto others thing…)

One commenter said:
Maybe it’s jealousy – Ms. Meyer wrote something wildly popular and made a ton of money. Her readership numbers are larger than the population of some countries. And I’m jealous as hell, but you know what? That means I need to write something as good if not better.

To which I say: This. Exactly this. Jealousy is such a vile, evil emotion. I suppose it’s natural to be jealous of the super stars. And I’ve felt that evil twinge when I think about Twilight, mostly because I write paranormal. I don’t feel that way about Dan Brown or Rowling, perhaps because I don’t really write what they do.

But this is exactly right. It just means I need to channel that negative emotion into positive energy and write something fabulous. To push myself harder, keep studying the “masters” and keep writing. I like to think this is a business where you get what you give.

And if you give negative energy, well, you’re really only hurting yourself. Does that mean I’m all peaches and sunshine? Heck no. Let’s be real. I expect to be jealous at some point, it’s not as if I can suddenly turn off the green monster. But I think it’s a monster worth fighting. And I think it’s worth remembering that Karma can come back and bite you in the butt. So play nice. Be nice. And for goodness sake, sign up to my facebook page! *g*

Here’s a comment I made on Bob Mayer’s post I Was Wrong, Konrath Was Right. I thought it was worth sharing here on SAIP.

Hi Bob. Great post. Be ruthless. I like it! One of the author’s I look up to once said “be aggressive.” I took that to mean be aggressive in your writing, in your pursuit of “greatness” in regard to your writing, be hard on yourself, don’t take no for an answer, keep working at it, keep submitting, learn which rules to break….but don’t be obnoxious.

As a matter of coincidence, I’m actually featured on Joe Konrath’s blog today discussing my success as an Indie author, sharing my Ten Commandments for Indie Publishing and in general talking about what it took to get me where I am today.

As the industry shifts, parts crumble and other parts grow, I think one key thing to remember is there’s no right way to become published that will work for all authors. Sort of, there’s no right or wrong way. There are different ways. Different avenues to take. Different things to consider. And just like each person is an individual, their path to publication is unique.

It’s not that traditional publishing is wrong and ebook publishing is right. I’ve been invested in the ebook industry for about ten years now. Yes, ten years. It seems like such a new “trend” but people have been publishing digitally (and only digitally) for years now. It’s not “new.” What’s new is the speed with which readers (masses of readers) are adopting ereaders and becoming digital converts.

Each section of the market has flaws. Joe points many of them out. I think what we’re seeing these days is the market finally being forced to adjust and hopefully fix those flaws.