I’m over at the IBC blog today with a guest post that looks at figuring out how to best position your book genre-wise for success. Or, more accurately, how not having a specific genre for your book makes it harder to get traction, at least based on my experiences with Thrown Out.
Come on over and join the conversation in comments. And if you’re an indie author who hasn’t checked out the Indie Book Collective, it’s a great resource for indie authors at all stages of your careers.
Thanks to Twitter, today I stumbled on a 2008 post about True Fans — an example of the long tail of the Internet in action. The short version of the post is that artists don’t need to hit best-sellerdom to make a living — they just need 1,000 True Fans who will snap up their new work as soon as it comes out — every time.
It’s an interesting concept, and one that makes some intuitive sense to me. It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Jesse Stern’s work. I’ll watch his post-NCIS projects because his NCIS work made me a True Fan. Joss Whedon’s fans are the most vivid example of this in the TV world — many writers and others who worked on Whedon’s projects have carried fans on to their subsequent works. Likewise, if I find an author I like, I often go buy more of their work. That’s one reason I’m a huge fan of book series. I can think of a dozen authors that I like enough to buy new work by them just because they wrote it. It’s the basic reason networking is so key in business of any sort.
So let’s transfer this over to the indie publishing world. Robert Bidinotto, who made indie headlines when Hunter became a huge success back in the late fall, has talked about Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point theory as it relates to publishing. I’ve read Gladwell’s book, and it’s a great guide to how word-of-mouth takes something to that stratospheric success level. But before you can get to the Tipping Point, you need to have a certain amount of visibility. You need that base of True Fans.
When I look at the reviews of Thrown Out on Amazon, I recognize several names. Why? Not because they’re friends, although I would consider several of them friends. But most of them are people who I know because they started reading my fanfiction at some point and that’s how we connected. We got to be friends, but that was evolution, not the origination. And I have many friends who I first got to know because I read and liked their work, whether it was original or fanfic. It’s human nature to want more of things we like.
Earlier this week, I posted fanfiction in a fandom I hadn’t written in before. A couple of interesting things happened. I got an influx of reviews on my NCIS work from people who had never reviewed before. They read my NCIS:LA story, liked it, and went looking for more. Conversely, I got reviews on my LA fic from regular readers of my NCIS stories, many of them mentioning this was the first time they’d read this type of story.
The first example is how we build new True Fans. We find people who haven’t been exposed to our work and entice them to read it. They read it, they like it and they go looking for more. It’s why backlist is so critical to indie success. The more we have available, the more likely it is new readers can quickly convert to True Fans.
The second example is how True Fans help us thrive as writers. That fan base means we don’t start from scratch with each new project. I might have 100 True Fans now. But each new project gives me a chance to build more True Fans. And that’s where Gladwell’s Tipping Point comes in. The more True Fans an artist has who share the work they admire with friends, the more word of mouth you build.
Social media makes this even more key because a few people who have their own True Fan bases can amplify a message. When new NCIS crew members get on Twitter, Pauley Perrette and cast members spread the word, which gets them thousands of followers in just a few days. When writers I follow — James Scott Bell, Terri Giuliano Long, Porter Anderson, Elizabeth Craig, Anne R. Allen, and more — recommend a writing post, I know it’s going to be good and I a) read it and b) share it. And when those writers share my posts, I get a lot more traffic than normal.
Interacting with existing fans helps convert them to True Fans. The more True Fans, the more chances you have of finding new fans. And the more new fans, the more likely you are to hit that Tipping Point. But you can’t skip steps. A lot of people focus on building numbers of fans, but if we all focused on our True Fans, I suspect we would find the number of total fans would increase on its own as those True Fans share their excitement.
Who are you a True Fan of? If you’re an artist of any sort, how do you connect to your True Fans?
Dan Blank’s post last week about defining success has combined with some other things in my life right now to get me asking myself that very question. One of the things that’s been a challenge the past several weeks has been finding a way to balance writing with platform building and social media. Roz Morris had a really great post on the topic this weekend where she pointed out that publishing in order to build a platform was backward. The book doesn’t build the platform — the platform builds the audience for the book.
Lately, I’ve been feeling like trying to keep up on everything to promote my writing has left me with very little room to actually write. Now, some of that is a function of schedule changes at work that I’m still adjusting to. But for me, it’s also a sign I needed to step back and think about a) what I’m trying to accomplish with my first book and b) what I’m trying to accomplish with the Exeter series in general.
Thrown Out is never — in and of itself — going to be a best-seller. It’s an odd niche (short-story collection) and it doesn’t fit into any other genre because the common thread among the stories is the setting and characters, not the genre. If it reaches best-seller status, it will be because it’s backlist for novels in the series that are easier to categorize and promote.
Recognizing that is liberating in a lot of ways. The way for me to get more people to read Thrown Out is to write and publish the next book in the series, the first novel. It will be easier to find because it fits into a genre that does well in ebooks, and as people find it and like it, they will be more likely to hunt down my other books.
That, in turn, allows for more of a focus on what’s important — writing the other books and short stories in the series. I also now have a better focus for what’s important in terms of additional blogging and other writing projects. After all this introspection, I have a better way to set priorities.
As a writer, it means my Exeter books won’t come out as quickly. But I think they’re going to be better books. I also hope they’ll find more of an audience because of cross-pollination with my other projects. We’ll see. Everything in the world of indie publishing is an experiment these days, and this is just one more of them.
Several authors I network with have all joined together for a Free Par-Tay event — all of us have made books free on Kindle today through Saturday. (Don’t wait until Saturday to get them – a lot of the books will revert back to paid mid-day.)
If you’re looking to stock up, head on over:
If you’ve just been looking for an excuse to get my book, it’s here.
Happy reading!!!!
My TBR pile continues to virtually teeter as I add new books, but after reading this excerpt from Scorpio Rising, it’s going on the list. Continue reading
I knew there was a review coming up in today’s December issue of eFiction Magazine, but I was still blown away by the rave review when I read it a few minutes ago. You can read the issue on eFiction’s site, or subscribe through Amazon to the Kindle edition. And if you haven’t seen eFiction before, check it out for some great reads by indie authors! Also, the reviewer posted a blog interview she did with me.
OK, indie authors, how would you feel if you were selling an average of two books a minute or more for a five-day weekend? Sound crazy? Robert Bidinotto thought so — until he did just that this past weekend.
If you were at Kindle Boards over the weekend, you might have seen the thread where four KB indie authors were invited by Amazon to participate in a Black Friday promotion that started Sunday. Robert was one of them, and he was featured as an editor’s pick. By the end of the weekend, his debut novel Hunter: A Thriller had passed thriller writers Stephen King and James Patterson – including Patterson’s new Alex Cross novel in the bestseller lists. As of Tuesday night, he had sold more than 8,000 books through this promotion. It’s currently ranked 8th in sales among all paid Kindle books.
I haven’t read Robert’s book yet, but even before this promotion it had amassed more than 90 five-star reviews. He doesn’t have any backlist, and he doesn’t price at 99 cents. Hunter is listed at $3.99 and Amazon dropped the price to $1.99 for the Black Friday promotion. He has a single good book, and somehow he caught Amazon’s attention. Now his book is on the radar for anybody who buys thrillers through Amazon, and he’s likely to pick up several more sales even after the promotion ends.
He described his reaction last night: “What’s happening is unreal right now. I can’t believe it…but I just blew by STEPHEN KING.”
So what is Amazon accomplishing besides making one writer’s holiday weekend one he’ll never forget? They just showed that they can help a good indie writer beat the Big Six. If this was a success for them, I expect that we’ll start seeing more of this. Continue reading
Did yesterday’s excerpt of Stay Tuned pique your interest? Join us below for a Q&A with author Lauren Clark about Stay Tuned, her writing journey and her background in broadcast journalism. I’m glad to be able to share this with everybody — I always like to see another journalist or former journalist turning to this different kind of storytelling.
As part of this special promotional extravaganza sponsored by Novel Publicity, the price of the Stay Tuned eBook edition has dropped to just 99 cents this week.
What’s more, by purchasing this fantastic book at an incredibly low price, you can enter to win many awesome prizes, including lots of Amazon gift cards (up to $100 in amount) and 5 autographed copies of the book. Be sure to enter before the end of the day on Friday, December 2nd, so you don’t miss out. Continue reading
I’m back after a nice, long vacation with my family, and I’ve got a sneak peek for you at a book I started reading on vacation — watch for my review later this week…
As part of this special promotional extravaganza sponsored by Novel Publicity, the price of the Stay Tuned eBook edition has dropped to just 99 cents this week.
What’s more, by purchasing this fantastic book at an incredibly low price, you can enter to win many awesome prizes, including lots of Amazon gift cards (up to $100 in amount) and 5 autographed copies of the book. Be sure to enter before the end of the day on Friday, December 2nd, so you don’t miss out.
1. Purchase your copy of Stay Tuned for just 99 cents on Amazon or Barnes & Noble (You’ll need it for the big contest on Friday)
2. Fill-out the form on Novel Publicity to enter for the prizes
3. Visit today’s featured event; you may win an autographed copy of the book or a $50 gift card!
Over 100 bloggers are participating in this gigantic event, and there are plenty of prizes for us too. The blogger who receives the most votes in the traffic-breaker poll will win a $100 gift card as well. So when you visit Novel Publicity’s site to fill-out the contest entry form, don’t forget to say that I referred you, so I can get a point in the poll.
Monday, Radio Interview with Novel Publicity! We’re kicking-off on the Novel Publicity Free Advice blog. We interviewed Lauren on our radio show Sunday night and have embedded the full podcast and blogged about its highlights. Give it a listen and then leave a comment on the blog post. This is a great chance to get to know more about this fun and bubbly author. One commenter will win an autographed copy of Stay Tuned. Don’t forget to enter for the other contest prizes while you’re over there!
Tuesday, Twitter sharing contest! A tweet is tiny, only 140 characters. But on Tuesday, it could win you $50. Send the following tweet across the twittersphere, and you just may win a $50 Amazon gift card. An autographed copy of Stay Tuned is also up for grabs. The winners will be announced Wednesday morning. Here’s the tweet: Take a break from the holiday frenzy, and read Stay Tuned. It’s fast, fun, and reduced to just 99 cents! http://ow.ly/7zA1e #whirlwind
Wednesday, Google+ sharing contest! Yup, there’s yet another awesome opportunity to win a $50 Amazon gift card, and this time it just takes a single click! Visit Google+ and share Emlyn Chand’s most recent post (you’ll see the Stay Tuned book cover included with it). On Thursday morning, one lucky sharer will be $50 richer. An autographed copy of Stay Tuned is also up for grabs. Two chances to win with just one click! How about that?
Thursday, Facebook sharing contest! Stop by Novel Publicity’s Facebook page and share their latest post (you’ll see the Stay Tuned book cover included with it). It’s ridiculously easy to win! On Friday morning, one lucky sharer will be $50 richer. An autographed copy of Stay Tuned is also up for grabs.
Friday, special contest on the author’s site! Are you ready for some more fun? Take a picture of yourself with your copy of Stay Tuned either in paperback or on an eReading device, tag Lauren Clark’s Facebook page, and you can enter to win one of three Amazon gift cards! A $100 prize will go to the most creative photo, $50 to the best BFF photo, and $50 to the photo with the most people in it. An autographed copy of Stay Tuned is also up for grabs. If you need help learning how to tag a photo, you can visit Lauren’s Facebook page for detailed instructions.
About Stay Tuned: What happens when a #1 news team becomes the top story instead of reporting it? For TV producer Melissa Moore, crisis management comes with the job. From employee disputes to her high-maintenance boss, there’s not much she hasn’t seen or can’t handle. But no one—including Melissa—expects a fistfight during the ten o’clock news. When sexy-but-crazy Alyssa Andrews lands a punch on her co-anchor’s face, Melissa jumps on set to help. She’s determined that WSGA’s reputation won’t be destroyed on her watch. Both anchors are fired and Melissa agrees to fill in—but not before polishing her look from haircut to heels. While the new Melissa wows WSGA viewers, her personal life starts fraying at the edges. Melissa’s husband is away more than he’s home, leaving cryptic Post-it notes in his wake. Her mother’s antics spiral out of control at the nursing home and a stalker decides Melissa is her next target. What happens next? Stay Tuned to find out… Get it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
About the Author: Lauren Clark has been a voracious reader since the age of four and would rather be stranded at the library than on a desert island. In her former life, she worked as an anchor and producer for CBS affiliates in Upstate New York and Alabama. Lauren adores her family, yoga, her new Electra bike, and flavored coffee. She lives near the Florida Gulf Coast. Visit her on her website, Twitter, Facebook, or GoodReads.
Chapter 1
Alyssa Andrews was missing.
Gone, vanished, MIA with just minutes to airtime.
“Melissa, where is she?” Our news director, Joe, shot a harried look in my direction. After dealing with a broken studio camera, spotty satellite reception, and last-minute script changes, his nerves were fried to a crisp.
“She’ll be here,” I promised, knowing my confidence was a front. Alyssa, one of WSGA-TV’s main news anchors, was a constant source of angst in my already-stressful job.
She was young, talented, gorgeous…and chronically late.
This lack of punctuality was a problem, especially when WSGA ran a show at exactly six and ten o’clock every night. Not a moment later.
WSGA was Macon, Georgia’s number one news station and had been for two years running. If we wanted to keep it that way, timing was everything. Every second mattered.
I produced both evening shows, which meant—among a dozen other tasks—organizing the day’s stories, writing copy, and checking video. Each segment had to run seamlessly between three-minute commercial breaks.
Deep breath, Melissa. Send up a little prayer. She’ll show up.
The red numbers on the clock continued to march forward.
Another deep breath. Everything’s in place. Alyssa just needs to walk in and get on set…
“Tighten up on camera one.” Joe peppered the room with demands. “Mic check, now, not yesterday.”
Tim Donaldson, Alyssa’s co-anchor, obliged, counting backwards from the number five.
Joe’s thick fingers punched buttons on the massive keyboard in front of him. “Bring up the live shot.”
Still, no Alyssa.
Joe raked a huge hand through his long gray hair. “Five minutes!” he growled, with a glare into his empty coffee cup.
At this point, it was Joe’s show to run. He was in charge. I shuffled my scripts. “How about I call her?”
“She’s an adult,” he grumbled. “You shouldn’t have to.”
Joe expected nothing less than perfection. He was experienced, hard working, and a stickler for detail. Alyssa’s nonchalance made him crazy.
Which, at 9:55:36 on a Friday night, gave him the patience of a gnat. On crack.
This was particularly dangerous for an unsuspecting new employee, all of twenty years old and pimple-faced, who crept up behind us.
Joe ignored him at first, barking an order to me instead. “Fine, fine. Melissa, tell Princess A. she’s needed in the studio.”
On autopilot, I punched her extension, eyes focused on the row of monitors above my head in case she decided to appear.
While the phone rang, the new kid rocked on his heels nervously. I flashed a smile and shook my head gently in his direction, hoping he’d get the hint.
Not now.
Nope. The kid stood there, coughed lightly, and waited for one of us to turn around.
“What?” Joe finally snapped.
The force of the word made the kid’s body jerk back. Jaw open, unable to speak, his face turned crimson.
Joe waited about a second for the kid to talk, and then leaned back over the control panel. He pressed at switches, clearly annoyed. The kid looked sick. Joe rolled his eyes. My anxiety level cranked up ten notches.
9:58:09. Less than two minutes.
Wait…a flash of an ivory suit and blond hair.
“There she is,” I interrupted the tension with a cool nod toward the monitors.
Front and center, Alyssa sauntered into the studio, lips puckered, blowing her shell-pink nail polish dry. She slid into her seat next to Tim, and gave him a playful pat on the shoulder.
Joe muttered something I couldn’t repeat.
I stifled a loud sigh of relief and glanced around the room. The new guy was the only one in the building unimpressed with Alyssa’s arrival. With a shaking hand, he reached out and tapped Joe’s burly shoulder.
“Mr. Joe, there’s a problem with one of the machines—”
Joe’s back stiffened. He turned a millimeter in the kid’s direction and exploded. “Get your butt back there. Get one of the engineers. Fix it. Call someone.”
I caught the now-completely mortified kid’s eye, and motioned for him to come toward me. Grabbing the nearest piece of paper, I jotted down the engineer’s extension and held it at arm’s length with a kind smile. Poor guy. Lots to learn.
With a grateful look, the new kid plucked the scrap from my fingers and darted away.
Time to get started.
I settled in, gripped my pen hard, and looked up.
Okay. Alyssa’s collar was turned under. Minor detail, but sure to garner at least five viewer complaints. You wouldn’t believe what people called in about.
I leaned toward the microphone to let Alyssa know.
“Dare you not to tell her,” Joe muttered. It wasn’t a secret that the guys would willingly let Alyssa go on air with underwear on her head. She hadn’t made friends. Or tried to.
Tim, her co-anchor and current boyfriend, didn’t count.
“Just part of those darn producer duties, Joe. You know that.” I flashed him a smile and pressed the button to talk. “Alyssa, fix your collar.”
Her mouth parted into an O. Alyssa frowned, glanced down, and straightened the pale edge. Just in time.
Like a well-directed movie, the WSGA-TV opening video flashed across monitor one. Macon, Georgia’s skyline filled the screen.
My body tingled with a familiar rush of excitement. It happened every time we went on air. The cameras and lights, the beat of the music, the thrill of live television.
Here we go.
Seconds later, Alyssa and Tim appeared under the lights, their bright anchor smiles pasted on.
“Good evening, I’m Alyssa Andrews.
“And I’m Tim Donaldson.”
And on it went, without a blip, for the first ten minutes. I started breathing again after the third break.
Stanley and Sunshine, the weather cat, were ready for the five-day forecast, check.
Commercial break, check.
Sports, check. I didn’t worry about that three-minute slot. Plenty to talk about, visual stories; the anchors could get away with jokes and ad-libbing. Viewers loved it.
We rounded out the show with an inspirational kicker about a local scholarship winner, a kid first in his family to go to college. He’d won forty thousand dollars and was going to Georgia Tech to study astrophysics.
The show wrapped with a standard goodnight, credits, and a wide shot of the WSGA set.
The second the master control operator switched to break, Alyssa flounced off the set in silicone fashion. She barked into her jewel-encrusted cell phone about her min-pin puppy’s cancelled spa appointment and stomped out of the studio, teetering precariously in four-inch heels.
Yikes!
I climbed the flight of stairs back to the newsroom, relieved the night was almost over.
The phones started to ring five seconds later.
Indie publishing and its effect on traditional publishing is a work in progress, and we can’t fully measure its impact. But as we head into a holiday season where ereaders are likely to be a popular gift, it seems clear that book bloggers and reviewers are the next gatekeepers in the world of publishing.
Originally, publishers had that role. Then they (mostly) stopped taking unagented manuscripts, outsourcing the role to agents. Agents have been the first hurdle for many authors to clear for years now. Then came ebooks and Kindle Direct/PubIt/Smashwords and all of a sudden authors could go direct to readers. No gatekeepers! Complete freedom from constraints. Um, no. Keep reading…
It’s been almost six months since I decided to go indie, and not quite two since my first book published. As with anything new, there’s been a learning curve. I’ve been fortunate to learn some things from other indie authors — especially Terri Giuliano Long — but some of my lessons have come from doing it not quite right the first time. Mark Young posted an update on where he is and what he’s learned, so I’m stealing his idea and doing my own learning process post. Keep reading…
David Wisehart, who runs the Kindle Authors blog, interviewed me last month about Thrown Out and he posted the write-up today. Head on over and take a look — he interviews at least one Kindle author a day, so you might find some other books to add to your Kindle while you’re poking around over there.
Joel Friedlander has a great blog post looking at the concept of the Minimum Viable Product for writers, and how e-books have affected that. In journalism terms, we always call it the minimum story, a necessity for any potentially time-consuming project. In both cases, it’s the lowest level you need to publish. In investigative reporting, it’s a story you know you’ll get, even if you’re hoping for a bigger scoop. In e-books and indie publishing, it can be a short story, or section of a novel. Or, as I did, a collection of short stories.
The stories in Thrown Out weren’t the goal when I started writing my Exeter stories. The book wasn’t the goal when I started the Story Cubes Challenge. But as I got into them, people started reading them on my LiveJournal and here and asking when I would have something published. So Kyrie and I decided a short-story collection would be a great way to introduce the Exeter characters and let me tell some stories that are important to individual characters, but don’t necessarily fit into one of the full-length books I’m working on.
In comments on Friedlander’s blog, it seems I’m not the only one taking this approach. Linda Sands has several short stories out as e-books, and Darby Harn is considering a short-story collection as a next project. Have you thought about e-publishing short stories or other sub-novel-length projects? What were your biggest challenges? (Mine’s been marketing and finding reviewers willing to look at a short-story collection.)
Now that I’ve jumped into the indie author world, book promotion is something I’ve been working on. I love social media, so that’s been a focus. But I find myself in a dilemma and want to know what you think, both readers and writers, about the line between good promotion and spam.
A few times in recent weeks, I’ve found people talking up the social media promotional prowess of authors who I followed briefly before dropping because all they did was clog up my feed with promo tweets. I’m not going to name names of either the authors or the people touting them as good examples because I think that runs too great a risk of derailing the conversation. To me, social media is a way to interact with people and connect to them. That might then make them more likely to try the book, but without that connection, it’s just another ad in their stream. I promote my book, but I’d say actual promo tweets are only about 10 percent of my total. I’m sure it could be higher without getting near the spam line.
What’s your take on the line between promotion and spam from writers? As a reader, what’s the point where you get frustrated enough to stop following/friending/circling a writer because it’s too much promotion?
Welcome to Exeter... 