Button Does Self Publishing

I want to chronicle this here, because I love you all. And I'm going to figuratively burst if I don't talk about this.

The History

If you would have asked me a year ago to self published, I would had tried to hide the smirk on my face with a gentle smile and would have told you I was holding out for that shining publisher contract. That was true publishing!

So I've done what I'm supposed to. I've gotten | | this close to landing agents, who for the majority said in phone conversations that they enjoyed the work but the competition was too big and they weren't sure. I've talked with editors who didn't get approval from their publishers to take me on.

And so I went back to my desk to write some more, after heavily questioning if I still wanted to play this game. I can take being rejected. I just hated the thought of my work sitting on the shelf when it was a good story.

Recently, I ran into a friend of mine (online) who told me her secret: She's self publishing.

I, of course, gave the obligatory smile and congratulated her, asked her when her book was going to come out and then promised to buy it while at the same time letting the title slip in one ear and out the other.

Until she told me her secret secret: She was on track to making $300 for the month and she was following a set plan that would put her to double that the next month.

Intrigued, I bullied her (Yes!) to tell me what she knew. And she did. I found out the secret from an established group of writers who have been experimenting with things for over a year (some longer!).

What I found surprised me. The lot of them were making four figures a month, some five, one in the high five range and is set to break into six figures next month. They worked together, figured out what was working and what wasn't, and they are already quitting their jobs and focusing on their trade. Some are just writing enough to establish themselves before they move on to other venues to make money. (AKA, they are earning money to invest into other projects.)

Does this sound like a sales pitch yet? Because I feel like I'm writing one. The only reason why I mention this is because I'm about to establish my current stance, my goals, and reveal these same discoveries that I've been finding to be true.

The Secret

Please note, what I'm saying here is what has worked for the handful of people who are doing this, and is what appears to be working for me. I'm following a pre-set list of guidelines not established by me. I could be doing it completely wrong but it is working for me so I'm running with it. There will be errors. There will be conflicts with other people's experiences. There will be corrections made in the future as times change. I just want to establish that I'm not an expert. This is my experiment, this is my ongoing hypothesis.

1. Write what people want to read.

Check the sales data. As some have mentioned, zombies are hot, erotic literature is hot, romance is always popular but even within romance, there's a few sub genres that you could pick up. Study what's working, what isn't, and write to what the audience is asking for. (True of fiction and nonfiction.)

2. Don't give your words away.

Short stories sell at $2.99 for 3000 words up to around 6000 words. $3.99 to $4.99 for up to 12,000 words. So on and so forth for longer works, bundles and more.

Not one single item in my catalog is under $2.99. Some others who are doing this wait until a series is established and then may drop the price of their first book to $.99 but everything else remains at $2.99 and up.

Don't let "seller guilt" emotions claim you. Price accordingly.

3. Establish a catalog.

One book can sell one or two copies in a month. It slowly builds over time. There is one sure thing you can do that will increase your sales and bring in new sales: Write something new and publish it. Consistently.

Thirty titles seems to be the magic number to get to around four figures. If you are doing it correctly (following the rules established) and pushing stuff out there, your work shows up regularly on the 'new fiction' lists, which self promotes you and pushes your backlog of titles at people.

4. Covers matter.

Covers need to sell what you are selling. Love sells romance. Sex sells erotica. Dead things sell horror. If you aren't sure, check out covers in the top 100 of your genre.

4. Blurbs and keywords matter.

This is part of marketing. Blurbs are important and need to talk about your book without giving everything away. Excerpts can be inserted to help set the mood. Keywords are also important, and you can check with the trendy books to see what keywords they've set up to figure out what they used.

5. Write well, but don't hold back.

Don't waste months combing your book only to put in commas and take them out. Yes, there will be a typo. Yes, some grammar nazi will comment and leave a negative review based on this one finding. No, it won't hurt your sales. No, it isn't the end of the world. Write, edit, publish.

6. Publish widely.

If you want to catch many fish, cast a wide net. I'm listed with KDP, PubIt, Smashwords and Kobo. I am entering AllRomance now. I will be publishing to iTunes myself in time. Google Play is something I'm gunning to get in to (under specific conditions that I need to address when it's time).

I will also be seeking out audiobook publishing, following a mentor's guidelines and posting to iTunes, Google Play and Audible. It seems to be working well for him so far but this is in the future.

The Details

Nonfiction:

Two "Work at Home" career guides, 10,000 words each, selling at $2.99
One healthy body recipes ebook, about 10,000 words and was my first, selling at $2.99

Fiction:

Romance, four currently published, 10,000 words, $2.99 each

Erotica, four published at 4,000 to 7,000 words, for each story, $2.99 each, one bundle set (three of the stories being resold) $6.99


When I first started, I put out a nonfiction book on body wrap recipes. I was selling a consistent $20 to $40 a month. No marketing. I was happy with the results, and had meant to establish more nonfiction books to try to mimic that success.

When my friend told me she was selling fiction, I switched. I had already almost finished two more nonfiction books (career guides) and I went ahead and compiled those together in late August and posted those. But as those were getting put online, I was already knee deep into my first short story.

The first romance one I posted, I broke all the rules. Well most of them. The story was good, the cover was awesome. The blurb sucked. The keywords were bad. The genre: completely wrong.

So I went after the erotica market. I figured out how they were doing it and I followed their lead. I learned a lot from digging into their market that went with the romance market, too.

So when my erotica titles sold before my romance title, I went back, fixed my blurb, fixed the keywords, but also wrote something new in a popular romance genre. I followed the guidelines established above. I focused on what was selling, made sure everything fell in line.

The Results

In late August, I had one pitiful ebook up for sale in the beginning, the body wraps. It was selling at the usual pace.

In the third week, I had my first romance to test the waters and managed to get up one of the erotic stories before the end of the month.

In the last couple of days of the month, I had put up some additional erotica stories, two more romance books and the two nonfiction ebooks. Because it was the last day, the results were mostly from the body wraps.

But in the last few days, I sold three erotic stories.

Today, with the titles above already published and selling, I'm closing in on my goal to hit $200 for the month and it looks like we'll break that and we're not even half way through the month yet.

I'm not done. I have an erotic story coming out today, the sequel probably later today and another bundle to put out. I have three more erotic stories in mind for this weekend. Next month, we plan to double our goal and keep the stories out consistently. Romance, erotica and then I want to establish myself in other genres that I'm interested in.

When I say we, I mean my significant other and I. He makes my covers and handles the spreadsheet. I write and upload it all to where it needs to go. We're making plans on how to handle things in the future. If this hits $2,000 a month consistently (and first month in, we're on track to hit that by the end of the year) or more before next summer, I'm retiring from my current work at home job to write full time.

Next week, I finish out my first romance series that at first did terrible, but now with other books selling well, readers are going back to pick those up. Once that's done, I'll be dipping into more popular areas of the romance genre.

I also plan on publishing the novels I've worked so hard on and shelved. If I follow the same guidelines, price accordingly, I have no doubt these will sell.

So I'm hoping to upkeep this thread with ongoing results, rearranging goals as needed. As mentioned, there will probably be a number of experiments. I'll try to keep things updated.

This certainly isn't "get rich quick". We've put a lot of effort into this, not just the writing but with how we're handling things. It is a lot of work but it is already paying off.

If only I'd started a year or two ago.

You can argue it and try different things out, but from my findings and from learning from others, people do buy at $2.99. For a price of a coffee, people will fork it over for an ebook that will take an hour to read. That $2.99 price point over a set of 30 stories earns around $2000 - 5000 a month for the writers in the group mentioned. That's at minimum 700 sold ebooks people are buying from an individual and there's rarely a complaint about size or price. The ones that do buy the sequel, too.

But take from this info what you will and use it how you like. I'm not trying to change your mind. I'm just giving you the information I've seen/experienced.

leahzero, that's absolutely what is happening. If I tried to start writing a zombie novel right now, a traditional publisher might not be able to push it out until 2015, if I get lucky.

If I self publish it, I'll hit the trend while it is hot, and then ride it if it ever slows down but at least I'm selling. The same could be said of romance (billionaires are hot) and erotica (werewolves were hot for a while). And that's just what I remember off the top of my head. So if people like to write horror, go see what's hot on horror's top 100.

J. Tanner: I'm not too worried about the biography of a pen name. The info is true, the gender and obviously the photo isn't. I may replace the photo with just a book cover sometime. It is part of the experiment, mostly. My other pen names don't have an author photo yet because I'm still up in the air about how I want to handle it.

I'm not actually too worried if some fans figure out who I am. It's not a totally huge secret, like I'm not trying to buy a cabin in the woods and telling people to call me only by my pen name. If they like my writing well enough to follow me on the internet and figure out I'm that person, I'd be excited because I must have some fans. The only reason I use pen names is to keep myself organized and to ensure the romance readers follow the romance pen name, erotica the erotica pen name, etc.

I don't know if there's a 'best' way to handle pen names and personalities, but since I have different pen names it can be part of the experiment as well. I may leave a few blank, the one with a fake set up and then figure out which way works best. I'm still conflicted at what type of name sells better: boys or girls.

There is the advantage of taking on the big trends, but there's also building a readership.

As I mentioned, my first romance didn't sell at first. Once I wrote something popular, that title got picked up and the backlog did as well. So far, when I've pushed out a new book, the old books get a jump in sales, too. My catalog is still small across the board, but I'm hoping to mix and match writing what I think is a good story along with writing what is popular in the moment. It may help to build up that readership.

There's also following your own trends. If you notice werewolves aren't as popular with other people, but your readers keep buying, you can continue to put those ebooks out until you see your own sales drop.

I think it will be more noticeable with a bigger catalog. That'll take some time to build but I'm glad for the chance to write.

bearilou said:

Go, Button, go!

I am curious about something in regards to your short stories. What is your current release rhythm/schedule? Do you release one story a week or more?

I started my experiment at the very end of August and release one short a week (so I have, as of today, three stories up). So I wonder if I need to step it up a bit.

Good luck to you! We're cheering you on!

Click to expand...

I try to write one romance a week, plus at least one short story, possibly two. The short erotica is easier for me to write. The plotting is a little bit more... simplified.

You don't need to speed up or slow down. You need to work at a pace where you won't suffer burn out. If it takes a little time to build up your portfolio, that's fine, right? It's not a sprint, it's long distance.

And thank you, Norman. I appreciate it.