Steven Orlowski's Blog: Steve O's "So What?" Blog - Posts Tagged "self-publishing"

Well, sales did tick up a little initially. However my book is certainly not burning up the charts.

This is quite frustrating as I believe Pilgrimage is actually pretty good. I've even been told so by people who are not compelled to be nice to me based upon our relationship.

I think the ultimate lesson from my experience so far is that promotion is more important then I hoped it would be. I imagine most writers want to be discovered by readers simply by pushing the "publish" button at Kindle Direct Publishing. But with millions of other books to compete with that is unlikely to occur in all but a very few, fortunate cases.

So I will continue my journey of discovery and experimentation and hopefully I will build a loyal readership along the way.

Thanks to my GoodReads friends that have offered support, advice and bought my book. I'll keep everyone posted as time goes by and let you know what is and is not working in my world.

Well, I'm a winner. Finally. It's not that life hasn't been good to me, but I can't recall winning something as random as a raffle before.

I must admit, it feels pretty good. I won signed copies of the five stories that make up Hugh Howey's bestselling book "Wool".

You see, I started following Hugh because he is extremely successful as an independent author.

He self-published Wool and the rest of his Silo series to great success. Actually, I knew of Hugh for months before getting down to reading his book.

I thought there must be some marketing magic that Hugh was performing to become so successful. But there isn't...

The truth is Wool is a great book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to reading the rest of the series.

And I'll gladly add Hugh's signed books to my small collection of autographed editions.

But more importantly for me, and for other aspiring self-publishing success stories, I've learned that the secret to success isn't social media or marketing, it's writing the best book you can.

Good books will always find their audience. And success will come to those that earn it by writing well.

So thanks Hugh. I look forward to receiving the books. And I as I write my next book I will keep you in mind. If I manage to achieve even a fraction of the success you have I will be satisfied knowing that it's the story that counts.

11 months after I self-published my debut novel in various (although now exclusively Kindle) e-formats, "Pilgrimage" is now available in paperback.

I'm excited. It is very cool having my book in physical form. Seeing Pilgrimage on my Kindle and in the Kindle store at Amazon.com is one thing, but feeling it's weight, having a front and back cover, turning the pages - it all adds another level to the feeling of accomplishment.

Plus I added some graphics to the front and back of the book. The original cover of Pilgrimage is now the first page of the paperback. I added two images to the back as teasers to upcoming books I plan on releasing in the late spring and in the fall of this year.

It's been inspiring too, that as I announced the publication of the paperback, I also started promoting the next book. I just put a couple of images on my Facebook pages. I was thrilled to hear from readers of Pilgrimage who are excited for the next book to be published. Repeat readers, huh? Do I have fans?

In conclusion, I will paraphrase the legendary and misquoted line from Sally Field at the 1985 Oscars "You like me, you really like me!" this way - "Someone likes me, someone really likes me!" And it feels good.

Over the past few years the publishing business has been altered radically. A handful of very successful independently published authors have trail-blazed a different and better way of writing for a living.

Not only have they proven that some authors do not need an agent or a publisher to sell a lot of books, but they have also changed the way indie authors do business with mainstream publishers and agents.

A few authors have been able to sign publishing deals for hardcover and paperback book rights while keeping the ebook rights all to themselves. This was unheard of a few years ago. Hell, when I finished the first draft of my novel six years ago the standard advice was to not self publish. If the book didn't sell well, and even if it did I was told, a mainstream agent or publisher would not touch you or the book.

So the success of these indie authors is great news for all authors, some of whom are relinquishing their traditional publishing contracts in exchange for the control and freedom to publish their entire catalogs in perpetuity.

But what I find interesting, if not a little disturbing, is the focus on marketing, not writing.

I read a lot of blogs, websites, newsletters and watch videos published by indie authors. I want to know what works so I can market my books effectively. It is a necessary evil. But we all need to know how to do it.

I also read a lot of books. I download a lot of samples to my Kindle before I buy. Many indie authors are writing and publishing a lot of books. Some seem to believe the secret to success is to publish a lot of books as fast as possible.

Some of them are selling their books too. More books than I am in many cases. But when I read them, often just the sample, I am amazed at how poorly written so many of them are.

But when an industry changes as fast as the publishing industry has this kind of phenomenon is anticipated. It is not new, nor is it relegated to the book publishing industry. Frankly it can be witnessed throughout history.

The pendulum effect I speak of is this un-tethering of an industry from long held practices which opens the door, the prior "barrier to entry" as in the query letter process, to any and everyone who ever thought they might someday want to write a book.

So I am conflicted when I think about it, and I am as I write this post. As an author I am ecstatic that things have changed thus. When I finished Pilgrimage I sent out dozens of query letters. I got not one indication of interest.

I put Pilgrimage in the proverbial drawer (I just didn't open the Word document) for more than four years. It wasn't until I began reading about the breakout success of authors like John Locke, Colleen Hoover and Hugh Howey that I started thinking seriously that maybe I should self-publish also.

The problem I see is the tremendous amount of poorly written books. Now I haven't read John Locke or Colleen Hoover, but I have Mr. Howey, and I thought at first that Hugh was a great marketer so I watched him from afar to learn his secrets for months without reading anything he had written.

Eventually I did read the original Wool story, because I got it for free, and after which I paid for and read the whole Wool Omnibus. But that purchase only occurred because Hugh writes well. I'm not saying he is the next Hemingway, nor am I, but he cares about writing well.

But too many samples I download, by authors with decent rankings and seemingly genuine reviews, are quite poorly written.

And that is where the pendulum comes in. I suspect this publishing industry transformation is near the peak of the "writer as marketer" emphasis. I mean, I have watched podcasts and read interviews where the writers talk nothing about writing and all about giveaways and social media and other stuff. Yes, we all need to understand how to market our selves and our books but it should be secondary to the craft of storytelling.

I think the general reading public, not those of us who are both readers and writers, will begin to tire of low quality offerings and more and more book sales will begin to concentrate around the indie authors who have established a reputation for quality, not just quantity or effective marketing skills

The appeal of getting a book for free is fantastic. But if I have to spend hours of my life reading something that sucks the cost to me is far greater. I'd rather spend $10.00 for a great book than $3.00 for a mediocre one or $0.00 for a piece of garbage.

Speaking of $3.00 books, over the last month I've experienced a large increase in sales. For me that means selling books every day where in the past I could go weeks without a single sale.

Part of the influence is, I hope, the result of my book's reviews. I don't have many but they are all good, mostly 5 star, and all real.

I think, however, this recent increase in sales can be traced back almost to the day that I changed the cover for the third time.

One of my recent reviews was by a fellow Goodreads author who liked the book but hated the cover. He said the cover was boring and wasn't indicative of the story inside.

I already suspected that but his words motivated me to take action and change the cover again. I do all my own cover work, and it takes time, but I got a cover together and I am happy with it. And I think it has made a difference.

I am curious to hear from other authors who have had similar experience. Has the cover been that influential to your success? And what about quality versus quantity in indie publishing? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Steve

Stephen King is one of my favorite authors. He has also written what may be my favorite book in any genre, On Writing.

It's a great look into the mind of a great writer. And it is more autobiography than it is reference material for wannabe writers.

Writing is a creative endeavor. And Mr. King leaves much of the technical writing considerations to the vast amount of other books on writing. He provides a more meaningful insight into the life of one of the greats of American letters.

So I hacked his book's title for this blog post. That's because I have recently come to recognize the need for authors to have editors.

My best friend was reading my novel Pilgrimage recently. When we got together last weekend he glibly pointed out several errors in the book. I don't mean to suggest he was happy there were errors; just that he was happy he found them.

The errors were nothing terrible, just basic oversights like misspelled words and misplaced punctuation. But that meant I had to go back through the manuscript once again. So as I work on completing my next book I am back to reediting Pilgrimage.

It's a bummer, but it needs to be done. I don't want readers to avoid future books of mine because of sloppy editing in the version of Pilgrimage they read (earlier versions had more errors. Unfortunately, as far as I can determine, Amazon does not automatically update the books on your Kindle with the most recent, revised edition. I hear that is coming, however).

Which brings me to professional editing. I think authors, being the creative minds that I presume we all are, tend to get lost in the story even when editing. It is too hard for us to look at the manuscript objectively, and therefore are prone to missing things that need correction.

But it is expensive to hire an editor. And I'm sure it is a challenge to qualify one unless the editor has been referred to you.

So for now I'll be reediting Pilgrimage myself. But it must be nice to have an editor like Stephen King does. To know that someone will be checking the manuscript for you before publication eliminates much of the worry and presumably allows the writer to focus exclusively on the story.

Someday. Someday.

So I just scheduled my Kindle Countdown Deal starting on June 7 for my book Pilgrimage.

When I'd done it previously, the last quarter of 2013 and the first quarter of 2014, my sales went up, but considering where I started from that was not hard to do. I still felt the overall impact was nil.

But starting in March the book began to sell well. I'm still in no position to make a living from my book sales yet, but my sales went up 700% from March 2014 to April 2014, and then increased another 250% in May.

Since it is now selling well I am wondering if the Countdown will be beneficial, if it is necessary and when (if ever) should an author shy away from running such promotions.

I'm going to run it, and it'll last for a week. I just hope the trend in my sales continues to increase or, better yet, accelerate. Anyone with experience with or an opinion of the Countdowns please let me know your thoughts.

Less a blog post, more a news item, I want to alert my readers that I've changed the title and republished "PILGRIMAGE" as "Pilgrimage: ALIEN 777". There are a couple of reasons.

One: Sales have stagnated. And while I am working on numerous other projects (of which I am expert at procrastinating) I thought I'd try repackaging this book and see if this new-ish title (it was in the running and could have been the original title) and previously used image (I used the current cover image for a while as "PILGRIMAGE") might jump-start sales.

Two: One of the books that is coming (eventually) is a direct follow up to Pilgrimage: ALIEN 777 which has a working title of Pilgrimage: AFTERLIFE. There is an image of a possible cover included in the collage of covers on the "BOOKS" page of this website.

Pilgrimage: AFTERLIFE includes several of the main characters from Pilgrimage: ALIEN 777 (for those that have read ALIEN 777 here's a bit of a teaser, the True Believer team has grown with a couple of the ALIEN 777 participants working full-time with the Jonathan and Julia Shipmate researching the paranormal and televising their findings) however I am not calling it a series, yet. I am looking forward to writing more about the characters in the Pilgrimage books, but for now only the second is in the works.

For the cynics out there here's the good news. If you bought "PILGRIMAGE" through Amazon before (and the same should apply elsewhere) you will not be tricked into buying it again as the ISBN and ASIN numbers (which track sales of the books in eBook and paperpack format) have not changed, just the title and the image have changed. Amazon reminds you that you've purchased the book before when you pull up the listing for it. And besides, I don't want accidental respurchases, I want new readers for ALIEN 777 and I want previous buyers to come back for the next installment and the other titles I am preparing to release.

But please let me know what, if anything, you think about the altered title and/or cover. I am interested in receiving feedback. As for future releases, the best is yet to come. And THE INTERVENTIONIST is on the way.

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