This is the story of how I backed into self-publishing ass-first and miraculously failed to lose my shirt.
I didn't start by selling books. I started by giving them away. For a number of reasons I decided to make my first book series, Shadow of the Templar, available on the web for free; I had never written a full-length book before and I didn't know if I'd be any good at it, so I thought I'd write some practice books and find out. Essentially, these were my trunk novels, except instead of putting them in my trunk, I put them on the internet.
My thought process was essentially this:
- if I managed to write all four books in the series without quitting, breaking down, or grinding to a halt
- and if I managed to do so in a timely manner, defined as 'one book written and edited a year, posting each one online no later than January of the following year'
- and if the books did not garner overwhelmingly negative reviews or otherwise suck on ice
- and if I got noticeably better at the craft in the process
then maybe I did, indeed, have what it took to write novel-length fiction professionally. If so, I decided, I would write a brand-new book and shop it around, see if I couldn't get published for real.
Well, I made my goal. I wrote all four books, I made all four self-imposed deadlines, and I thought the resulting books were decent and got better as they went along. I also felt confident that my decision to put them on the web was the right one; I felt that I had some promise as a writer, but the books were where they deserved to be (and priced accordingly).
And somewhat to my surprise, the series gained a following. Of course, it's pretty easy to get people to give free stuff a try--because it's free, and if they don't like it, all they lose is five minutes of their time--but people were reading the whole thing and then linking to it, talking about it, recommending it. Pretty nice. It felt good.
I should add, somewhere in here, that I've never really done much to publicize the series. I mentioned each book's release on my Livejournal and I submitted the site to a few web-fiction collections, but mostly I let word of mouth bring people by. Self-driven self-promotion makes me itchy. Moreover, I couldn't shake the feeling that the series didn't really deserve a concentrated promotional effort. It's not bad, and I'm still fairly proud of it, but I've always recognized that it's amateurish in places and not as well edited as it might have been. I wrote the books for writing practice, and in the end, I decided to let them live or die on their own merits.
That's not self-publishing, though. That's writing for the hell of it. Self-publishing came later.
Shortly after I put out the second book I started thinking about making actual physical copies available for people who might want them. (Not taking down the website, mind you. I'd long since decided that the books would remain available on the website in their entirety for free forever, unless there was a compelling reason to take them down, like a publisher losing its collective mind and wanting to purchase reprint rights.) In any case, it was 2006 and POD was really starting to become A Thing, and I'd heard that I could publish through Lulu for essentially free. I checked them out, discovered that that was more or less true, and put together some books. I didn't bother with an ISBN, as I wasn't trying to publish through Lulu, I was only trying to provide reprints of something that was free online anyway. I thought learning how to put together a Lulu book would be a good experience, and anything that sold would be pure gravy.
Once I finished creating the paperback versions, Lulu asked me if I also wanted to make PDFs of the interior available for instant download. I believe my initial foray into actual e-publishing began with the words 'SURE WHY NOT'.
I've always tried to make it clear that the books could be read online for free--it says as much right on my Lulu storefront. For that reason, and for others, I wasn't expecting the Lulu stuff to sell very well. For some reason, they did sell. And they still do. The books are completely free to read on the web in their entirety, and somehow I'm still selling somewhat-overpriced POD hard copies and nice PDFs. I can't explain it, but I can tell you that it feels pretty good!
So, hard numbers. Or not so hard. My website numbers are ridiculously mushy, since my site stats are concerned more with general hits and links than they are with telling me exactly how many times each page on my site has been accessed. I can, with some effort, assemble a number that vaguely resembles the number of raw hits that a webpage has received. This number is hugely inaccurate. It is my best guess that between five thousand and six thousand people have read the free series on the website (this number derived by adding up raw hits to random middle sections of the third and fourth book, averaging those, then dividing by ten to account for reloads, rereads, random spambot hits, Google searches, and assorted shenanigans) but, honestly, that number could be off by thousands in either direction. You'll get no help from me here. If I ever put another book online, I'll put better tracking in place first.
(I've also noticed that, in any given month, the first section of the first book gets approximately four times as many hits as the others do. That makes sense to me: it means that for every person who reads the series, three people give it a try, decide that it's not to their liking, and move on. I'm down with that.)
My Lulu numbers are much more concrete and easy to come by.
Book One: 344 copies
(164 paperback, 172 PDF, 8 asst. e-reader)
Book Two: 307 copies
(151 paperback, 151 PDF, 6 asst. e-reader)
Book Three: 296 copies
(142 paperback, 151 PDF, 3 asst. e-reader)
Book Four: 296 copies
(137 paperback, 153 PDF, 6 asst. e-reader)
So what do these numbers mean? Damned if I know. I wasn't entirely unknown as a writer when I started putting the books online, but I wasn't really 'famous on the internet', either. I probably started with an audience of thirty or forty readers, at most.
I do think the numbers sound pretty good for an initial foray into self-publishing, particularly one as half-assed and bass-ackwards as mine was. Hell, I'm selling reprints of a work that can be read for free! People who buy the book/PDF seem to fall into two camps: those who want to read the books but really don't like to read things online, and those who like the series enough to want to own a hard copy.
So how do my costs break down? Well, I'm solidly in the black. I had to register the copyright of each book--always a fun experience--and I did buy the occasional paperback from Lulu, but most everything else I already owned at the start. I had my computer and the text editor in which I wrote; I already owned Photoshop Elements for making the book covers; I already owned my webspace and the domain name that was attached to it, although later on I did buy a second domain name. Lulu'ing covered the copyrights and the cost of the second domain name, and continues to cover my webhosting costs, and has paid for a fair amount of coffee in the bargain.
Not too bad. Could be better, but could be a lot worse, too.
That's my (rambling, poorly-edited, confusing) story. If you're interested in the books, the link to my website is in my signature.
I didn't start by selling books. I started by giving them away. For a number of reasons I decided to make my first book series, Shadow of the Templar, available on the web for free; I had never written a full-length book before and I didn't know if I'd be any good at it, so I thought I'd write some practice books and find out. Essentially, these were my trunk novels, except instead of putting them in my trunk, I put them on the internet.
My thought process was essentially this:
- if I managed to write all four books in the series without quitting, breaking down, or grinding to a halt
- and if I managed to do so in a timely manner, defined as 'one book written and edited a year, posting each one online no later than January of the following year'
- and if the books did not garner overwhelmingly negative reviews or otherwise suck on ice
- and if I got noticeably better at the craft in the process
then maybe I did, indeed, have what it took to write novel-length fiction professionally. If so, I decided, I would write a brand-new book and shop it around, see if I couldn't get published for real.
Well, I made my goal. I wrote all four books, I made all four self-imposed deadlines, and I thought the resulting books were decent and got better as they went along. I also felt confident that my decision to put them on the web was the right one; I felt that I had some promise as a writer, but the books were where they deserved to be (and priced accordingly).
And somewhat to my surprise, the series gained a following. Of course, it's pretty easy to get people to give free stuff a try--because it's free, and if they don't like it, all they lose is five minutes of their time--but people were reading the whole thing and then linking to it, talking about it, recommending it. Pretty nice. It felt good.
I should add, somewhere in here, that I've never really done much to publicize the series. I mentioned each book's release on my Livejournal and I submitted the site to a few web-fiction collections, but mostly I let word of mouth bring people by. Self-driven self-promotion makes me itchy. Moreover, I couldn't shake the feeling that the series didn't really deserve a concentrated promotional effort. It's not bad, and I'm still fairly proud of it, but I've always recognized that it's amateurish in places and not as well edited as it might have been. I wrote the books for writing practice, and in the end, I decided to let them live or die on their own merits.
That's not self-publishing, though. That's writing for the hell of it. Self-publishing came later.
Shortly after I put out the second book I started thinking about making actual physical copies available for people who might want them. (Not taking down the website, mind you. I'd long since decided that the books would remain available on the website in their entirety for free forever, unless there was a compelling reason to take them down, like a publisher losing its collective mind and wanting to purchase reprint rights.) In any case, it was 2006 and POD was really starting to become A Thing, and I'd heard that I could publish through Lulu for essentially free. I checked them out, discovered that that was more or less true, and put together some books. I didn't bother with an ISBN, as I wasn't trying to publish through Lulu, I was only trying to provide reprints of something that was free online anyway. I thought learning how to put together a Lulu book would be a good experience, and anything that sold would be pure gravy.
Once I finished creating the paperback versions, Lulu asked me if I also wanted to make PDFs of the interior available for instant download. I believe my initial foray into actual e-publishing began with the words 'SURE WHY NOT'.
I've always tried to make it clear that the books could be read online for free--it says as much right on my Lulu storefront. For that reason, and for others, I wasn't expecting the Lulu stuff to sell very well. For some reason, they did sell. And they still do. The books are completely free to read on the web in their entirety, and somehow I'm still selling somewhat-overpriced POD hard copies and nice PDFs. I can't explain it, but I can tell you that it feels pretty good!
So, hard numbers. Or not so hard. My website numbers are ridiculously mushy, since my site stats are concerned more with general hits and links than they are with telling me exactly how many times each page on my site has been accessed. I can, with some effort, assemble a number that vaguely resembles the number of raw hits that a webpage has received. This number is hugely inaccurate. It is my best guess that between five thousand and six thousand people have read the free series on the website (this number derived by adding up raw hits to random middle sections of the third and fourth book, averaging those, then dividing by ten to account for reloads, rereads, random spambot hits, Google searches, and assorted shenanigans) but, honestly, that number could be off by thousands in either direction. You'll get no help from me here. If I ever put another book online, I'll put better tracking in place first.
(I've also noticed that, in any given month, the first section of the first book gets approximately four times as many hits as the others do. That makes sense to me: it means that for every person who reads the series, three people give it a try, decide that it's not to their liking, and move on. I'm down with that.)
My Lulu numbers are much more concrete and easy to come by.
Book One: 344 copies
(164 paperback, 172 PDF, 8 asst. e-reader)
Book Two: 307 copies
(151 paperback, 151 PDF, 6 asst. e-reader)
Book Three: 296 copies
(142 paperback, 151 PDF, 3 asst. e-reader)
Book Four: 296 copies
(137 paperback, 153 PDF, 6 asst. e-reader)
So what do these numbers mean? Damned if I know. I wasn't entirely unknown as a writer when I started putting the books online, but I wasn't really 'famous on the internet', either. I probably started with an audience of thirty or forty readers, at most.
I do think the numbers sound pretty good for an initial foray into self-publishing, particularly one as half-assed and bass-ackwards as mine was. Hell, I'm selling reprints of a work that can be read for free! People who buy the book/PDF seem to fall into two camps: those who want to read the books but really don't like to read things online, and those who like the series enough to want to own a hard copy.
So how do my costs break down? Well, I'm solidly in the black. I had to register the copyright of each book--always a fun experience--and I did buy the occasional paperback from Lulu, but most everything else I already owned at the start. I had my computer and the text editor in which I wrote; I already owned Photoshop Elements for making the book covers; I already owned my webspace and the domain name that was attached to it, although later on I did buy a second domain name. Lulu'ing covered the copyrights and the cost of the second domain name, and continues to cover my webhosting costs, and has paid for a fair amount of coffee in the bargain.
Not too bad. Could be better, but could be a lot worse, too.
That's my (rambling, poorly-edited, confusing) story. If you're interested in the books, the link to my website is in my signature.
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