Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors Review discussion

I may have taken a risk, and wondering your thoughts on whether it will pay off. I just self-published a book of short stories. This is my very first release that I have written. I am working on an Epic fantasy as well, but these stories just kept coming and I couldn't get away from it. I know for people like Neil Gaiman, who have written an enormous amount of books, realeasing a book of short stories is perfectly acceptable. What about as a first release effort though? I would sincerely like anyone's thoiughts.

Honestly, I don't think it much matters if your book is shorts, a full novel, or anything else. You still have the same hurdles and learning curves, right?
And think about it. The wonderful thing about writing is that if it doesn't pan put, you can get a pen name and reinvent yourself for your next book. ;)

All good points Christina, yes. Thanks! :)

Also, in sci-fi there are magazines that will take individual stories and publish them. If you get that, you can join groups like SF Writers of America. It's a slightly easier path than if you only write novels, perhaps?

I don't think collections of short works sell very well, especially from non-established writers.

But it's not really a risk. The only thing you're risking is not getting sales, which is nothing new for us SPAs. ;D

You could always publish the individual stories separately as well. That would boost your catalog as far as # of titles go and give you additional possibilities for discovery. Of course that'll cost you more time and possibly $ if you're paying for book covers like I am.

Thanks for sharing your story Rob. I wrote all of the stories over an eight month period, so they were ready for the Omnibus already. The fact that I kept hyping them I hope helped. I had them all read by beta readers, one in particular who has a really good eye for detail and sense of what doesn't work, so that was helpful. I could've sought even more feedback as well, so I am kind of regretting that. One of my shorts was originally published on my blog, and received great feedback. The book is on Amazon now, in print and on Kindle, then I plan on doing Smashwords for all other digital editions after 90 days. I wanted to do Kindle Select for the first 90 days. Thanks for the feedback though. I don't plan on doing shorts again, because I have a whole bunch of full novels on the docket.

Richard, I have considered the magazines. Might do that in the future if a Short crosses the valley of my brain LOL.

Micah, thanks for your feedback as well. As much as I've put into this, releasing them individually would defeat the purpose. If it doesn't sell well, then I may look at alternatives though. Thanks so much.

I've not published yet, so I can't speak by experience, but everything I read says that the key to success is getting a good mailing list, and one of the keys to getting a mailing list is to offer something for free, so someone who gives you their email gets a free book or story in return. With a number of short stories, looks like you may have something ready made for that - e.g. give 2 or 3 of them away for free if someone joins your mailing list.

My problem when I get my first book out in the next few months is that I don't have anything else to offer yet, and I'm currently pondering whether to work on book 2 in the series, or a prequel novella that I can give away. I think the former, but haven't decided for sure yet.

Charles wrote: "As much as I've put into this, releasing them individually would defeat the purpose. If it doesn't sell well, then I may look at alternatives though..."

Ah...I see you've only published this in paperback. See, that is a mistake. Every SPA I've heard from sells vastly more eBooks than paperbacks.

At $10.99, very few people are going to shell out for a paperback by an unknown author. Especially since there's no Look Inside preview of what people are buying. Basically you're asking people to shell out $11 for something sight unseen when they have no clue if you can even write.

That's asking a lot.

I would strongly suggest that you back this publication up with an eBook version, reasonably priced. You'll experience more sales and everyone will be able to preview your writing.

Now...if you were to also publish eBooks of all the short stories and make some of those free, but charge $0.99 for most of them, you'd be even better off.

Consider: every individual title in your catalog is another opportunity for someone to see your work. If this omnibus contains 12 short stories (it doesn't look like you disclose how many stories are in the omnibus on your amazon page), that's 13 opportunities for someone to discover your work (the omnibus plus the 12 short stories).

Furthermore, if the omnibus is priced at $4.99, two short stories for free, and all the rest at $0.99, more people are likely to shell out $4.99 for all 12 stories than they are the $9.90 it would require for them to buy all 10 non-free short stories. And because e Books under $2.99 only get a 35% royalty, while eBooks over that prices get a 70% royalty (in most markets), you would actually earn more royalty on selling one copy of the omnibus than you would in selling 10 of the $0.99 short stories.

Collections save the customer money and (if you price them correctly...and get sales) actually earn you more royalties.

That’s good business.

Actually, Micah, he should have a Look Inside soon. It takes a couple of days. But I agree, an ebook is the best way to get notice.

Actually I have both Kindle and print available. The two simply have not been connected yet. That does take a couple of days. I agree about eBooks, and would never release print only. The kindle has look inside, which the print will too eventually. I would've gone lower on print, but that was the lowest Createspace allowed me to set it. Thanks for the feedback though.

You can lower the paperback price by removing the book from bookstore/library distribution. Bookstores and libraries probably won't take your book anyway, because you're not in the catalogs they buy out of. I've just taken all my books off those channels, reducing the prices a few bucks on each one. Not enough sales to tell if it helps, but it's worth a try. I'm sellling on Lulu as well as Createspace, because they ship more quickly and cheaply to Europe.

I like to keep my paperbacks in wide distribution, mainly because it also goes to Barnes & Noble and gives weight to the ebook. It may not sell, but it might help ebook sales. For Lulu, which I use for hardcovers, the markup is double for wider distribution, so I may forego that if I sell no hardcovers even on Amazon.

I thought of that strategy, Ken, but was concerned it might trigger price-matching on Amazon and drive the royalties there to zero. I shall be interested to see how it works out.

Richard wrote: "I thought of that strategy, Ken, but was concerned it might trigger price-matching on Amazon and drive the royalties there to zero. I shall be interested to see how it works out."

Seeing as Amazon owns Createspace, there is no way any other retailer is going to be able to price a CS book lower. The reason the royalty is lower is due to profit margins and middlemen. Amazon gets the book for a fraction of what CS charges other outlets.

I've never had any problem with B&N offering it at a lower price than Amazon, since B&N gets my paperbacks from Amazon/Createspace. They get my ebooks from Smashwords, and I make sure the prices all match.

Jeff wrote: "I've not published yet, so I can't speak by experience, but everything I read says that the key to success is getting a good mailing list, and one of the keys to getting a mailing list is to offer ..."

I think that depends on where you are selling. A mailing list probably not a bad idea, though we don't have one. We rely on our blog and readers following us on Amazon (which acts pretty much like a mailing list).

The key to sales on Amazon is internal traffic. If your book gets listed on the pages of books similar to your in the top 5000, you'll get a good deal of exposure. It doesn't take that many sales to push a new release up to where that can happen. If you can set up a mailing list (or other vehicle) to help with initial sales (though for us, Amazon did good job of that all by themselves), you can be off to a good start. If you're going to sell on Amazon at all, it's a good idea to go with KDP Select of the first three months, at least. It's a good way to build a following, with the tools they offer and the loan program. You can branch out later if that look like the way to go.

I'd strongly suggest you act on the premise your first book will sell and be ready with another. We weren't and it hurt us quite a bit. Readers like see something new about every 6 months (very roughly), if you delay much past that, people start to lose interest. There is no penalty for waiting -- readers aren't going anywhere.

BTW: The foregoing tends to assume you have a book that you think is worth $2.99. At $0.99, the benefits of Amazon are less evident.

BTW2: Genres matter, at least on Amazon. I see different buying behaviors depending on what genre I'm looking at. Check that out carefully when crafting your overall strategy.

Best of luck!

At the moment I'm using blog followers as Mr mailing list. It's not as refined but should do the trick.

That's as MY mailing list, although I guess I could start calling it Mr mailing list - only to myself, mind...silently.

That's as MY mailing list, although I guess I could start calling it Mr mailing list - only to myself, mind...silently.

Kind of fits with the initial question, though is slightly off topic.

I've read the comments, particularly about using KDP select for the first 3 months. I've already got my first 2 books in full distribution through Amazon and Smashwords. Any ideas if sending book 3 in the series through the 3 month lag of KDP would hurt/help the overall series sales?

K. wrote: "Kind of fits with the initial question, though is slightly off topic.

I've read the comments, particularly about using KDP select for the first 3 months. I've already got my first 2 books in full..."

How are you books doing with Smashwords? Overall, Amazon has ~65% of the market but that doesn't matter if Smashwords reaches where your market is. The big thing for us on KDP Select is the loan program -- some people complain about it, but it has been a huge benefit for us. The promo tools are nice, but the loan program is the what's keeping us there.

But here's one thing I discovered: our genre of KDP is dominated by indie authors. So we do well. But my co-author has an epic fantasy novel out there and epic fantasy on KDP is dominated by GRRM, Brian Sanderson, Richard Jordan, and a bunch of other old big names. Hardly an indie author in the Top 100 (urban looks about the same). The indie authors I see in the epic fantasy genre on KDP are most often giving their work away or selling it for $0.99. A lot of the work appears to be "hobbyist" quality. I think this drags the whole indie market down in that genre.

I also think that epic fantasy readers have not yet embraced indie writers the way SF readers have, and they are less kindle friendly (based on the relative ranking of authors who sell both).

So I don't think it would hurt to try KDP select on your 3rd book, especially to see how the loan program works for you. (It's been paying ~1.38 per loan recently.) I doubt a 3-mo absence from other markets would hurt you much, but that's a judgement call. If you're writing fantasy, it looks like a tougher market for indies out there (at least at Amazon KDP). When I say "tougher", our 3 sci-fi books outsell her fantasy novel by more than 50 to 1 (considerably more).

Owen,

Taking out the 2 months Out of the Darkness was free on Smashwords, both books are running neck and neck for sales - about 4 - 5 each. Out of the Darkness shows triple digit downloads, but only 10 copies "purchased" and most of those happened during the free moths.

Thanks for the info on the various genres, and how they're behaving right now. Especially with the fantasy. I knew that one was a tough break in. Didn't realize just how tough. And, competing with the "big boys" so to speak just makes it that much more interesting.

Rob wrote: "@K, I would have thought that receiving mostly 5 star ratings, you would be giving those "big boys" quite a bit of decent competition."

I'm pretty sure that the sales effect of ratings is actually OVER rated.

K. wrote: "Owen,

Taking out the 2 months Out of the Darkness was free on Smashwords, both books are running neck and neck for sales - about 4 - 5 each. Out of the Darkness shows triple digit downloads, but ..."

Epic fantasy -- especially her book, which is more what they used to call "High Fantasy" -- is probably the toughest, as almost no one writes it anymore. Maybe Patricia McKillip still does (though her work is markedly different). Other sub-genres are more popular.

In the last two months, we've seen pretty strong growth in the KDP Unlimited program, so I think it's catching on. The nice thing there is that it allows you to offer your book for "free" and get paid (once they read 10% -- as much as Amazon displays for a preview). If people are downloading the free version in decent numbers, maybe KDP Unlimited would be good for you?

Ken wrote: "I'm pretty sure that the sales effect of ratings is actually OVER rated."

Based on all my research to date on eBook sales, I agree.

Rob wrote: "@K, I would have thought that receiving mostly 5 star ratings, you would be giving those "big boys" quite a bit of decent competition."

Rob, the problem is getting folks to actually find the books. For fun, I've gone in through the front "page" of the fantasy "shelf" and I'm buried down around page 20.

However, once they find the book, it becomes a reading trap. At least, that's what I'm understanding the reviews to be implying. (And, I can live with that.)

Rob,

I've actually adjusted the tags on Amazon. Want to give them another couple of weeks to make a full 2 month run before I play with them again.

I really wish there were some way that you could see the page views, like there is on Smashwords. The closest I've come is using the smart urls, but those don't work on twitter, and I'm not getting much twitter-to-blog traffic for me to capture the click throughs that way.