Madame Guillotine's self publishing journey thread

[Old Hack]

Ditto what Merri wrote. I think it's great that you're willing to share the difficult times as well as the good ones: it's inspiring, and now I'm cheering you on even harder than I was before.

[oldhousejunkie]

Thanks for sharing your experience!

I already follow your blog (LOVE your little bios of historical women and I often comment...I'm that crazy American from the East Coast who happens to be an Anglophile).

I decided this past week to e-publish my completed novel. I'm tired of sitting on it after being told by multiple agents that it is "a great concept", "you're very talented", etc BUT "historicals set during the American Civil War are hard to market."

Like you, I'm not looking to roll in the dough, but I certainly won't cry if my novel sells well. I just love seeing good reactions to my work. I'm currently trying to build more of an audience for my blog. I've got 35 followers but I really need to amp that up. I took a hiatus earlier this year due to a family illness and since then my readership has really fallen off. I love to write about historical things, but I don't seem to get the comments on those posts that I do when I'm talking about writing.

Best of luck to you and l look forward to reading more from you!

[merrihiatt]

Caroline, I hope you'll continue to post about your journey in self-publishing.

[MmeGuillotine]

Thanks so much Old Hack! I really appreciate your support!

[MmeGuillotine]

Originally Posted by oldhousejunkie

Thanks for sharing your experience!

I already follow your blog (LOVE your little bios of historical women and I often comment...I'm that crazy American from the East Coast who happens to be an Anglophile).

I decided this past week to e-publish my completed novel. I'm tired of sitting on it after being told by multiple agents that it is "a great concept", "you're very talented", etc BUT "historicals set during the American Civil War are hard to market."

Like you, I'm not looking to roll in the dough, but I certainly won't cry if my novel sells well. I just love seeing good reactions to my work. I'm currently trying to build more of an audience for my blog. I've got 35 followers but I really need to amp that up. I took a hiatus earlier this year due to a family illness and since then my readership has really fallen off. I love to write about historical things, but I don't seem to get the comments on those posts that I do when I'm talking about writing.

Best of luck to you and l look forward to reading more from you!

Aw thanks so much! I recognise you from my blog - it's nice to see you here too!

Good luck with your publishing venture! I thought novels set during the American Civil War were HOT stuff! Just look at Gone with the Wind - it still has enormous appeal and legions of new fans all the time!

[oldhousejunkie]

Originally Posted by merrihiatt

Caroline, I hope you'll continue to post about your journey in self-publishing.

Thanks! I will definitely report back in once I work out my epic issues with POV and get the thing published! :-)

Originally Posted by MmeGuillotine

Aw thanks so much! I recognise you from my blog - it's nice to see you here too!

Good luck with your publishing venture! I thought novels set during the American Civil War were HOT stuff! Just look at Gone with the Wind - it still has enormous appeal and legions of new fans all the time!

Oh "Gone with the Wind" is the problem. Anything with a female heroine somehow rings backs to the novel, thus it's "cliche". Grrrr....


I'm sure I will step on some toes by saying that "Gone with the Wind" isn't all that great. Good Lord Margaret Mitchell could have used a good editor! Sure, the book is iconic, maybe even epic, but it's definitely made it hard on folks like me.


Unfortunately for me, the American historical market is all about European set stories, right now. But I do have an 18th century Ireland novel in the works, so I may try for traditional publication with that one.

[MmeGuillotine]

Ah, I see. That must be so annoying for you! I mean, I love Gone with the Wind (I really like over the top epics) but if I wasn't a fan then I'd be pretty narked by attempts to pigeonhole me with it and, God help us, marketing that involves quotes like 'Scarlett o'Hara for the 21st century' all over the jacket.

I wish I was trying to pitch books in the US - one of the few queries I sent out was responded to with a mini lecture about how massively unpopular novels set in France are in the UK so if I'm serious about being published I need to leave French history alone. I don't know how accurate that is though but it was certainly very disheartening and one of the reasons I decided to self publish. I suppose it also possibly explains why the publishers involved really drag their heels about releasing the books of Karleen Koen and Sandra Gulland over here...

[Old Hack]

Originally Posted by MmeGuillotine

I wish I was trying to pitch books in the US - one of the few queries I sent out was responded to with a mini lecture about how massively unpopular novels set in France are in the UK

WHAT? Really? Yep, tell that to Joanne Harris, author of Chocolat, whose books have sold over a million copies.

Wow.

Do drop me a PM or a reppie with the name of the person who told you that, if you feel able. In confidence, of course. I'm amazed.

[MmeGuillotine]

I feel a bit silly for paying attention to it now as clearly they were being bonkers and it stopped me querying my books! I'm really happy self publishing at the moment though so c'est la vie.

This happened about seven years ago now and by snail mail so I'm afraid I have no record of the agent responsible other than that I know it was a woman. I wish I could remember though so I could look them up and see how they are doing!

I do have the name of the person who told me that there wasn't a market for books about Marie Antoinette though! Bless their heart.

[MmeGuillotine]

I'm currently really stressed out as despite having a take down notice sent by Smashwords well over a week ago and a few 'Hey, you don't have permission to sell my book any more so please delete it' emails from me, Sony Ebook Store STILL haven't removed my book from their site.

This is a bit of an annoyance as I'm stuck with the low price point and 35% cut of the revenue on Amazon until they get it sorted out, which means I'm losing money for every single day that they drag their feet.

Argh!

[Old Hack]

Welcome to publishing, Mme G.

[MmeGuillotine]

Haha, yes, I'm definitely in a bit of a 'WHY did I think it was such a good idea to self publish?! I'm still at the MERCY of the publishers after all!' tail spin right now.

I dunno, for every day that this drags on and I feel all powerless to sort it out and more than a bit little me versus BIG CORPORATION, I feel more determination to submit my current WIP to a whole PLETHORA of agents.

[MmeGuillotine]

Although, am I overly dignifying Sony by calling them a 'publisher'? Is the more correct term 'distributer'?

[StephenJSweeney]

Sony's eBookstore is super slow at updating as well. It took them about two or three months to get my second novel onto their store, which some of my readers were quite annoyed about.

Give Smashwords a nudge and let them know that Sony are taking too long and someone there should get onto Sony.

[Old Hack]

Originally Posted by MmeGuillotine

Although, am I overly dignifying Sony by calling them a 'publisher'? Is the more correct term 'distributer'?

You're the publisher, they're the retailer, I'd say.

In print publishing, distributors don't make books available for sale to the general public: they stock them and actively promote and sell them to retailers, and do all the invoicing and so on too.

I know it's somewhat different in e-publishing, but I'm far too old-fashioned to call a company which sells books to readers a distributor.

Ha!

[MmeGuillotine]

I hope it doesn't take them 2-3 months to remove my book or I'll have to go back to my day job! Still, it's fortunate that I have that option however little I want to take it up.

I've had another email from Sony this morning saying that the request for deletion has been 'escalated' and is in hand but they couldn't say when it would be removed, just that it would be at some point. I think that's the best I'm going to get out of them so I'd better just stop stressing and carry on writing as after all it looks like there's sod all I can do to stop them selling it!

[MmeGuillotine]

That makes a lot more sense, thanks.

[J. Tanner]

You're on the right path by directly emailing Sony. They're renown for being slow but people have generally gotten it resolved quickest through that method rather than the incredibly long waits when working with SW as the intermediary. Stick with it.

[MmeGuillotine]

Thanks! I hope they get so fed up with hearing from me that they pull it out of sheer desperation!

[MmeGuillotine]

I have better news today:

1. One of the good things about this whole debacle is that it meant logging into my Smashwords account for the first time in forever, whereupon I discovered that I have made some money through them. I've just sent my W-8BEN form off to them so that I can get my mitts on it, so that was a nice surprise!

2. The amazing artist, Lisa Falzon, who did the cover for my most recent book sent me her first sketch for the new cover for my first book, which is my bestseller. I am completely thrilled with it as it captures the mood of the book PERFECTLY.

I did a giveaway of prints of the cover art when my last book came out, which was really successful and had the bonus of encouraging people to buy it straight away (I gave a free print to the first people to email me their Amazon receipt showing they'd bought the new book). I'm going to do the same with this new cover, only this time I'll give away more prints to anyone who buys a copy of any of my books.

If anyone is looking for a promotion idea, I'd definitely recommend doing something similar if you have striking cover art! All credit to my husband, whose idea it was.

[MmeGuillotine]

Hurray, Sony Ebook Store have now removed my book so I can stop hassling them about it and put the price up again on Amazon!

This isn't all down to materialistic considerations - I've noticed that my US readers are really suspicious of books that are priced too cheaply and sales there plummet when I experiment with dipping beneath $2 whereas my UK readers prefer books to be as cheap as chips and sales increase loads if I drop the price. I'm trying to juggle the two at the moment but obviously don't want to be cheap as chips in the UK and comparatively more expensive in the US as that's not fair!

Anyway, I can set my own price now so it's all okay again. I'm going to be monitoring sales pretty closely over the next couple of weeks until I get the balance just right.

In other news, I've just taken a break from my WIP to start a completely new series of books. I don't want to say too much about it at the moment in case it all goes awry but will say that it is a series of whodunnits set in 1840s Egypt, London, New York, St Petersburg and Paris and with a badass heroine and I am SERIOUSLY excited about it. I just hope I can do the vision that I have in my head proper justice! Typically for me, I've started backwards and am already thinking about who to hire for editing and cover design!

[merrihiatt]

Originally Posted by MmeGuillotine

This isn't all down to materialistic considerations - I've noticed that my US readers are really suspicious of books that are priced too cheaply and sales there plummet when I experiment with dipping beneath $2 whereas my UK readers prefer books to be as cheap as chips and sales increase loads if I drop the price. I'm trying to juggle the two at the moment but obviously don't want to be cheap as chips in the UK and comparatively more expensive in the US as that's not fair!

You may want to check the Terms of Service. I know Amazon KDP (and Select), Smashwords and PubIt! all want the price of your e-book to be listed the same across all sales channels.

Glad you were finally contacted with the great news from Sony!

[MmeGuillotine]

My books are only available on Amazon and I have no plans to distribute via any other channels so I'm not sure what you mean?


Sony were pretty awful and didn't contact me - I found out when my husband, who had taken to hitting refresh on their site several bazillion times a day emailed me in great excitement last night to announce that my book had vanished!

[merrihiatt]

Maybe I'm confused. If your e-book was on Sony and Amazon, then that would be two different sales channels. You also mentioned a different price for the e-book in the US and the UK, that's what I was referring to about the pricing. My apologies if I wasn't clear.

[MmeGuillotine]

The situation arose because Amazon lowered my price on their site and I then lowered it on Smashwords to match but then Amazon contacted me and said that the price on Smashwords/Sony etc had to match the list price which remained unchanged even though Amazon were selling it for half that. I've now removed it from everywhere except Amazon to prevent further confusion about pricing and have no plans to offer any of my books any where else.

Amazon allow for the pricing on their different sites to be different, which makes sense as they are in different currencies. At the moment my price in pounds sterling on Amazon UK is much the same as it is on Amazon US in dollars but I could have them wildly different if I chose, which I don't as I don't think it's fair to sell my books for more in the US than I do in the UK.