At times I tend to forget that I sat in the publisher’s chair for seven years, growing a publishing house from nothing to the 5th largest producer of science fiction and fantasy and horror in the nation.
And now, sixteen years after Kristine Kathryn Rusch and I shut that company down for good, we are helping in starting up another publishing company. And I’m trying to help indie publishers as well with these chapters.
And so is Kris on her site, explaining some of these same things in different ways. So follow her as well.
But, honestly, I sometimes forget that most writers just don’t know what I learned the hard way at Pulphouse Publishing. So now that I am going into an area I know and understand completely, I have been warned by a few friends to keep this pretty basic and simple and not talk over the heads of writers who would have no idea what I am talking about. I will try to do just that, explain every term, and be as clear as I can.
But don’t be afraid to ask if there is something you don’t understand and I haven’t explained it clearly enough. I honestly don’t mind.
Sales Plan: Some Basics
This last winter Kris had a book dealer complain to her. The dealer said that in the old days it used to be “Push, push, push, now it is pull, pull, pull.”
Not a clue what that means, right? But Kris instantly understood it and when she told me the dealer’s comment, so did I.
Back in the old days, in Pulphouse Publishing, we paid for the two-story office complex and nineteen employees and all the expensive leather book production by getting indie bookstores and specialty stories to buy our books.
Did we just sit there in that two story building and wait for bookstores to find us? Of course not. We pushed our books to them. There often wasn’t a month that went by that the bookstores didn’t get a mailing from us. We did major catalogs every three months and we put ads in every product we did for our other products.
We pushed the books to the stores. And to readers.
And we did it in a way that would help the dealers buy the books.
I’m not saying you need to do all that. But for some reason now, indie and specialty publishers think that just because they produced a POD book, bookstores and readers will flock to them. Or find their book in the tiny print in an Ingrams’ Catalog. The poor bookstores are reduced to pulling the books they want for their customers from the indie publishers, when they finally realize the book exists.
Push, push, push vs pull, pull, pull.
So, without the stupidity of going to fifteen different cities and trying to do signings and sending useless bookmarks to five hundred stores or doing blog tours that take weeks of time and get you no readers, I’m going to try to describe some ways to promote and push your indie-published books to readers and bookstores in a sane manner.
And cheaply. In ways that work. Just as publishers do.
A Change For Me?
Since the romance writers started the stupidity of authors needing to self-promote their own books, I have openly laughed at any author who does any self-promotion beyond a web site, Twitter account, and Facebook. Let me say this clearly again: If you are selling your books to traditional publishing, don’t waste your time with anything I am talking about here. This is for publishers. For writers selling all your work directly to traditional publishing, most of what I am about to talk about really is a waste of time.
So I haven’t changed at all in that opinion. Self-promotion for traditionally-published authors beyond a basic web site and social networking is a complete waste of time. I have always said that and that hasn’t changed. If you are selling traditionally (meaning to New York publishers), stay home, write the next book. Hit your deadlines and let your publisher alone.
But now, as an indie publisher, you have changed hats from being a writer to a publisher. And you need to learn to think like a publisher. So you need to know what kind of promotion works for publishers and what doesn’t.
Basics of Publishing
Most indie writers just take a few old short stories, maybe a novel or two, toss them up on Kindle and sit back and watch the numbers every day. And then, for the most part, are disappointed. Let me simply say: Duh!
The major part of a publisher’s job, either traditional or indie, is to sell books to readers and into the distribution system that will get those books to readers. And that takes some thought and planning. And an understanding of the distribution system to begin with.
A Basic Course in the Publishing Business Structure
Since forever in the publishing business, the exact same structure has been in place. Nothing has changed or will change in these four elements. (Imagine from top to bottom arrows leading downward following the track of the story through the system.)
1…Writers create stories
2… Publishers take the stories and produce them and get them into the distribution system.
3… Distributors (including bookstores) transport the book to the reader.
4…Readers, who are the point of the entire business.
NOTHING HAS CHANGED!
This entire indie publishing and electronic reading boom is just going on inside of the two middle areas (publishers and distribution). When a writer puts up a book on Kindle, the writer takes over the publisher duties, which is why the writer can make more money. Duh! The writer becomes the publisher.
Kindle is a bookstore inside the distribution area of the system. Readers buy the book from Kindle. Nothing different in the fundamental structure of publishing.
So now, if writers are going to take over the publishing duties and make the big bucks, they are going to need to understand how to get the books into the distribution system in a more efficient manner beyond just listing them in three places and hoping.
The Basics Required in a Sales Plan
1…You need good, professional-looking covers with a “publisher look.” See the covers post on that.
2… You need numbers of products. (And ideally, a number of author names, but not critical.)
3… You MUST go after every outlet you can find. Both electronically and POD books.
4… You must set your price structure so that you can give discounts to stores. Both electronically and POD.
5… You must know what discounts work for stores and what do not.
6… You must know how to produce quality sales sheets, book flyers, and sales material that grabs a book dealer. (Bookmarks, flowers, and buttons do not work…sorry. But knowing how to write a top pitch, a great active-voice blurb, and a grabbing tag line will sell more books than you can imagine.)
7… You must have a web site for your publishing house that works as a catalog for your products. And that can eventually sell product directly to readers through a shopping cart.
Those seven items cover a lot of data and over the next few chapters I’m going to be expanding these seven points and adding in a few other minor ones as well. So hold on, I will get to each area as quickly as I can. But there are a few more basics to cover in this chapter first.
A sales plan is basically a PLAN that details how you will sell your books.
Planning takes some thought. In fact, most of this series has been about planning.
The first six chapters I helped you set up a publishing business and then do some production to get a product up. So now, thinking like a publisher, how do you plan to sell your product that you have produced for the business? Over the next three or four chapters I hope to help you form that plan.
And decide what is right for your business and your time.
Some elements might be long-term plans, some you might be able to start the very next day.
But for the moment, start the basic plan. (Write out your plan. Helps.)
Common and Usual Ways an Indie Publisher sells books. (Make sure to include these in your plan.)
Electronic: Kindle, Pubit(B&N), Smashwords (which includes Apple, Sony, Kobo, and Diesel.)
POD: CreateSpace or LightningSouce or both.
Promotion: Tweet, Blog, and post on Facebook when a new book is posted. Tell mother and friends.
That’s it. That’s what most indie publishers do in these early days of this movement and nothing wrong with that at all. It made Amanda Hocking very rich and is working great for others.
But there are two things wrong with the above sales plan if that is all you do.
1… It completely misses about 90% of all readers.
2… To make it work at any large numbers level, it depends on luck and market timing, meaning that you have the right book, right topic, right time, or right author name. Most of us don’t. I’m just not that lucky, so I have to work harder to make my luck and my book sales.
Now you have the basics of the plan down. To start adding more to the plan, you first need to change some thinking.
Instead of hoping to sell a thousand copies of a book every month at one place, sell 10 copies a month at 100 places.
Sure, no publisher is going to turn down selling a lot of copies over Kindle. Or to one chain. But the foundation, the structure of publishing, is to sell a lot of different books two or three or five or ten copies at a time at hundreds and hundreds of different outlets. That’s the structure that paid for those huge buildings in New York.
We all want what I call “a home run” when suddenly a book springs to selling a thousand copies in a month on Kindle. We all do. But you can’t plan on that happening. Sorry.
But you can, without hitting a home run, plan on selling a thousand copies a month total of your books. And more. If you act and think like a publisher.
Here is what can you plan on…
—Selling ten copies per title in a month across all stores and sites and have 100 different book titles available. That will get you a sales number of 1,000 copies in a month.
—Selling one hundred copies per title of 10 titles across all outlets. That will get you 1,000 copies in a month sold and you only have to sell one copy of each title in 100 different stores and outlets. (1 sale x 100 outlets x 10 titles = 1,000 total monthly sales)
So keep hoping for the “home run.” But start working toward putting together as many outlets as you can that will sell your publishing company’s books.
But there aren’t that many outlets!!!
Excuse me while I stop choking from laughter. Yeah, I know, that sounds like a lot. But it is not, actually. Not at all.
There are thousands and thousands of book outlets to get books to readers. Just in this country. And to really expand that number even more, you must expand your thinking to 100% of all readers worldwide. You want your book to have a chance to be in everyone’s hands, don’t you?
Notice I said worldwide? Start thinking that way as well.
(Side Note: For those of you who sold North American rights to a book to traditional publishing and you don’t have those rights back yet, why not do an indie book and sell it electronically outside the States? It’s very easy these days. Just a thought.)
So how many sites do you sell to now if you are an indie publisher and put your work on Kindle, Pubit, Smashwords, and CreateSpace???
If you answered “four” you really need to open your eyes and look at where your books are going.
Just look at Kindle. By clicking the “Worldwide Rights” button on the second page of the submissions sheet, you are giving permission to Kindle to sell your book around the world in English. That means you have the US store, and the UK store. (That’s 2.) But have you noticed that your 70% book sometimes is sold at 35%? That means it was sold on a Kindle store outside of the US, Canada, and UK. There are a lot. But let’s just consider everything outside the US, Canada, and UK on Kindle as one outlet. (Kindle is very slow going worldwide compared to other companies like Kobo, Sony, and Apple.)
So that’s 3 outlets just by listing your book on Kindle. Pubit is just one store, even though it also has some worldwide reach. So that makes 4 in the count.
Smashwords is a distributor with a small store as well, so count Smashwords store as #5. They distribute to DieselBooks, which is another small store, so that’s #6.
Kobo gets interesting, because they are a worldwide general store and you get into the worldwide store by going through Smashwords, but Kobo is strong in Europe and for the moment in Australia. And they just announced today they were opening country-specific e-stores in six new countries, with more planned soon. So just for the sake of argument, let’s call Kobo 3 outlets. One for the States, one for Europe, one for the rest of the planet.
That brings us to a count of 9 outlets.
Sony is the same, so add 3 more for Sony. That brings the outlets to 12.
iBooks sells also around the world and is very strong in Europe and Australia. My last statement had sales in four different currencies besides the US, so call iBooks 5 outlets.
So just by putting your books up on Kindle, Smashwords, and Pubit, you have hit basically 17 major worldwide outlets. And some minor ones as well.
Now add in CreateSpace and you get your book listed in Amazon and in the fine print in Baker and Taylor distributing catalog and Ingrams catalog. That’s 3 more. And if you used a CreateSpace ISBN, or did a separate library edition, you can go into their library distribution channel as well by doing almost nothing. That’s 4 POD outlets total.
So just by doing the standard, an indie publisher basically gets to 21 major outlets for electronic books.
So you would only be 79 outlets short to find 100 outlets. And how to find and build those other 79 outlets, or more, is what the next chapters in building a sales plan are all about.
When I shut down Pulphouse Publishing, I had a network of 237 outlets for Pulphouse books. I built almost all of that in less than two years.
Stay tuned to the coming chapters and I’ll show you how to build a network of outlets for your company with very little work.
And a ton of sales and money in return without hitting any home runs.
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Copyright © 2011 Dean Wesley Smith
Cover photo copyright © Vladimir Melnikov/Dreamstime
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This series is part of the income streams for me. And, to be honest, donations keeps me going on these chapters. And anyone who donates a little to the Magic Bakery tip jar, I will send a free electronic book of all these chapters combined when I am finished.
And speaking of the Magic Bakery, this chapter is now part of my inventory in my bakery. (Confused on that, read the Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing post about making money with writing.) I’m giving you this small slice as a sample. I’m giving you a taste, but not selling any of the pie.
If you feel this helped you in any way, toss a tip into the tip jar on the way out of the Magic Bakery.
If you can’t afford to donate, please feel free to pass this chapter along to others who might get some help from it.
And I would like to thank all the fine folks who have donated over this last year. The donations and the comments both after the posts and privately are really keeping me going on this. Thanks!
Thanks, Dean
You…are such…a tease! I’ve never truely hated time for going too slow until this moment. I love the series’ and look forward to learning a great deal more. Of course, if I could get out of the ‘book as event’ miondset and the fear it causes, I might actually finish writing something to use all my shiney new learning On! =)
Thanks for all y’all do to shine the light.
-Dee
You sure know how to write a cliffhanger and keep us coming back for more. LOL
Thanks so much for explaining all this.
Lanette
Good thing I’m taking the long-view on this whole thing or the post above might have freaked me out completely. It’s all simple and you explain it well, but ramping up is a daunting task when there’s also life going on around me.
Fortunately I’m not going to run out and do it all now-now-now because I have in my plan to go POD and promote to brick and mortar stores in a few years once I have more than just a couple of things to push. And given how things are changing so much, I can see some sort of indie-press mergings going on so that multiple authors are promoting to bookstores and sharing those catalogue costs as well as looking larger to the outlets.
Can’t wait to see what comes next!
Alex, exactly right, take your time. No hurry on this.
As a fantastic person and one of the great editors of all time, Kate Duffy, said to me a couple years ago on the phone when I asked her if she wanted a rewrite quickly, “No hurry. Publishing never sleeps. It’s always here.”
Sadly, she’s not with us any more, but she was right, publishing will still be here in a few months and a few years and a few decades.
Hey Dean….
Can you say timely? I couldn’t have asked for more specific and pertinent advice if I had emailed you a topic request myself. Big shout of thanks for the blog and the mentoring. I’ve been following each step in your (and Kris’s) process along the way. Just posted my first ‘test’ story under a pseudonym on the ‘big three’ this past week, and will launch my website next week.
So…keep up the great work. It is IMMENSELY appreciated!
–Jim
Donated. Even if I need to wait and build up a larger inventory first, I suspect this information is going to make a huge difference in how my business evolves in the next few years. While I’d love to hit a “home run” or two, this seems like a far more sensible plan to build sustainable sales in the long run. And it will be far easier to have all this planned out *now* for implementation as I can than it would be to go back and do it later.
Thanks again. Patiently waiting for the next post…and already pondering the “Basics” list…
This was a good, solid *cliffhanger* post.
Now I have to wait for the next one…
My first POD trade paperbacks through CreateSpace, I made the mistake of setting the price too low. I cleared the minimum price necessary for the Extended Distribution, but not by a lot. After a couple months, I realized I had set my prices based on mass market paperbacks instead of trade paperbacks, so I upped those prices to be more in line with other TPB’s. That was when I finally started seeing a few sales through the expanded distrubition. And that’s also when Amazon started offering the TPB’s at a discount. That seems tangeantially related to what you were saying about pricing on POD. I look forward to learning more.
-David
http://www.gunsandmagic.com
DavidRM, yeah, afraid pricing will be part of this discussion again. Both electronic and POD pricing. Has to be there to allow bookstores and distributors to buy your stuff for a decent discount and for you to still make a decent profit.
Great stuff, Dean.
Could you expand on your thought about multiple names in a catalog? I haven’t planned on using multiple pen names. But if there’s a tactical reason for doing so, I might start considering it.
Thomas. All traditional publishers build on multiple authors (names). I know of some writers through history who have written every book for a publishing line or every story for certain magazines. But bookstores are used to looking at publishers with multiple author names. That’s the reason. But again, not critical. You can adjust flyers to focus on the one author and they are used to that as well. At Pulphouse I did many flyers with just one author as the focus of the entire flyer. And traditional publishing does it all the time. Just look through ads in say RT Review or Mystery Scene or Publisher’s Weekly. Single author focus all the time.
Darn it, Dean. Would you add a twitter button to your page to make it easier for those of us who want to tweet this? I hate having to actually do something. *crosses eyes*
I’m going to have to think about some of that. Talking to people in bookstores and stuff gives me the collywobbles. I’ll admit you’re always right, but that doesn’t mean I want to do what you say.
A. Great. Post. Useful and user friendly. I was able to follow from start to finish – printing up now. Thanks!
Well, amending, I admit you didn’t say to talk to bookstores. I just think you’re GOING to say to. Maybe I should stop mindreading since it isn’t one of my better skills.
Another great post, Dean. This series is a godsend for people like me about to step into the world of indie publishing. But you just had to end on a cliffhanger didn’t you?
Sorry about the cliffhanger. I just ran out of words and space. I try to keep these things at 3,000 words. Another 3,000 words coming soon. Honest. (grin)
The thing that blew me away about this post is the realization that as a publisher I am already represented in 20 distribution channels worldwide and i hadn’t even realized it. Knowing that makes the global vision clearer. I say twenty instead of twenty-one because B&N requires US residency to use its services so I don’t qualify. Thankfully the others do not. I look forward to future posts, of course, and more details, but already it is immensely liberating to realize how wide-ranging our publishing endeavors can be with a minimum of effort.
John, yup, it is a wonderful new world. A very large world.
Thank you for another great post Dean. I’ve learned a lot from you
Question: Have you published chapters 4,5,6 from this series? I have “Think Like A Publisher: the Early Decisions” from Smashwords and I’m waiting for the next binder.
Coming in the next few days, Jacqvern. Thanks for asking. (grin)
John – I also have that issue with B&N, but it’s okay as Smashwords distributes ebooks to them. If you publish through Smashwords and get into their premium catalogue, you’re opted into B&N distribution unless you opt out!
Thanks for the articles Dean, loving them.
You have inspired me to self-publish my series, for which I have just commissioned the cover art of the first book. Very excited.
Your articles have also inspired me to look at publishing some of my friends stories, making me what feels like a bona fide publisher. Scares the hell out of me and raises a heap of questions like contracts and splits on profits etc, i.e. if Amazon offer 70%, how do you split that with your authors – what’s the deal? And how do you work out the production costs like typesetting etc. Big and intrusive questions I know, but I’ve gotta ask.
Thanks.
Split with authors? Not sure what you are talking about, Gary. If you are going to publish other people’s works, you are talking about a level of complexity far beyond what I am talking about. I am talking about indie publishing, authors publishing their own work.
Read the first six posts in this series for your production question.
Very timely post, and show how much opportunity there is outside of Amazon. That seems to me the smartest way the proceed, rather than putting all the eggs in one retailer’s basket. A much sounder business strategy, taking advantage of as many outlets as one can reach, it seems to me. I know Mark Coker has tried to encourage writers not to disregard smaller (for now) retailers like Diesel or Kobo. A lot of small outlets add up! Looking forward to part two of this post, and ideas of how to reach those or 90% of readers!
Hey Dean,
Great post again. Thank you.
This is a little off-topic, but I thought you would get a kick out of this. At the London Book Fair yesterday, there was a lot of deckchair-arranging going on.
One Big 6 publisher said that they couldn’t raise e-book royalty rates because of the increasing cost of fighting piracy!!! He even had the neck to say that “unknown costs” would replace ALL the savings made on e-books. At least one agent had the sense to push back on this nonsense.
Read more here if you like: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/pa-backs-publisher-admission-over-piracy-costs.html
Dave
Dean, you may have covered it in another posts but I haven’t seen it but I was wondering about taxes from the foreign sales. Do you have to pay United Kingdom taxes for sales there? Taxes are something a publisher better think about. If you make a little money, the government will have their hand out. Thanks for your great articles.
Good stuff. The only thought I will add is that if you are reluctant to give an agent a cut, you should be equally reluctant to give Smashwords a cut for distribution.
You can upload direct to iBooks and Kobo. There is no need to go through Smashwords other than it’s easy to do so, but that’s a lazy reason. Both iBooks and Kobo require an ISBN, but that’s a small price when the alternative is to give a cut of every sale to Smashwords…forever.
(I’ll add that you do need to upload to iBooks with a Mac, so if you don’t have one and can’t afford a used Mac and otherwise have no way of getting access to one, you will have to go through Smashwords.)
Diesel and Sony are the only two markets that we can’t deal with directly at this point, though I emailed Diesel and they said they are working on this, and I believe if you get enough products for sale you may be able to go direct with Sony too.
Mark,
I will talk about it. And Smashwords, unlike an agent, is not forever. Duh. You can pull it down at any time, no questions asked. And sure, you can go direct to iBooks, Kobo, and Sony. (Have not checked Diesel.) But go ahead. Give it a try. If you are a single author on Kobo, they send you back to Smashwords. You must be a functioning, with financials, business. So go ahead, give it a try. (grin) I go through Smashwords because except for the annoying troubles with the conversions, Mark gives great value for his 10%. It would cost me a ton more time at this point in the game to spend going to each different place and dealing with their issues than go through Mark at Smashwords for a 10% fee. And if Mark tried to be forever like an agent, I would yank everything in a heartbeat.
You are confusing distributors with agents. Every step of the way there are distributors in publishing on every book. Truckers, catalogers, and so on, all take a percentage of the cover price (sometimes set in a few per pound) along the way. That’s the business. Smashwords is a distributor. 10% for the job being done is reasonable. That is my opinion. And I have researched this a lot and I do believe in not putting all my eggs in one basket.
Great stuff, Dean. I had no idea there were so many outlets.
May I add a suggestion to your seven points in the sales plan? Please contact the local media with a press release (and preferably a phone call), especially if you’re in a small market. News operations have a huge news hole to fill these days and a nice feature on a local author would be welcome, especially to those who run weekly or small town newspapers. It’s free advertising, and you can use the clips and/or video to promote later.
Randy, going to get to that in a promotions run. (grin) Thanks!
Hello, Dean,
I wanted to give you a heads up on XinXii.com, European digital publishing platform operated by a German publishing house. I’ve blogged about them, and I put my first ebook Just One Look on their English language platform.
I think they have the potential for going big. I hope so. Right now I’m actually on their Romance bestseller list, but I think that’s because they’re just not making that many sales. *g*
They’re market is English language worldwide, and they make it easy for authors to upload and for customers to buy because they take so many currencies, pay the VAT, and give you the royalty on the remainder.
Like I say, not big, but worth being on in case they go big.
Best wishes,
Joan Reeves
Joan, I agree and have looked at XinXii as a possible 4th major. I also think they might go big. And from everything I could tell, it’s as easy to upload a book to them as it is to Kindle or Pubit, and not as hard as Smashwords.
So, yeah, make that an easy new addition. I too think they have a great chance of going big.
Dean, I’d never read any of your work before–hadn’t even heard of your name or your seriers until a colleague (fellow indie author) sent me your chapter. She and I are both too broke to make donations but we do like to be chatty and spread buzz.
I have to say a couple of things. First, thank you big time for making it clear that Smashwords is a distributor not a bookseller or an agent. I mean, yeah, they sell books but I’ve been trying to explain to people until I’m blue in the face that the whole point of Smashwords is to use Mark’s extremely generous FREE service to access all of the wonderful distribution channels he provides access to, with one quick and easy upload. And I’ll grant that the Meatgrinder has its gremlins but if you start with a good Word file, it’s really not that hard an upload and *voila* you immediately have multiple formats available to sell and purchase even BEFORE you make the first Premium Catalog distribution.
Second, you made one point in this installment of your series that I connect with a sales model which got around 10 or 20 years ago. Maybe you’ve heard of it: 1000 True Fans. The idea of not going after the huge, mega-million dollar spike / flash-in-the-pan success and not actually settling for the “long tail” of petering out to nothingness after slapping up a book and waiting for the “if you build it, they will come” field of dreams to be fulfilled. Instead, 1000 True Fans suggests going after that point in the transition of the curve where the spike drops off to the long tail. It’s all references to a chart that proves just how much a picture’s worth a thousand words – I’m not explaining it well
Here’s the article and chart:
1000 True Fans
Click through the links to the “Case Against” article, too. Very nice little concept.
Most people argue that the 1000 True Fans model “only” applies to musicians or better, to painters and visual artists. I’d argue that your suggestion:
Instead of hoping to sell a thousand copies of a book every month at one place, sell 10 copies a month at 100 places.
if not exactly the same idea is a very close first cousin to the same model. I’m a geekgrrl so I think like one and I see the analogies. To use another more people might “get” recall that distributed systems in computing have led to the explosion of the internet as a social medium. Thirty years ago, distributed systems in computer were a funky and futuristic idea. Things change and yet remain the same. Selling huge amounts of anything overnight has always been hard and always will be a challenge, but selling small amounts, consistently–slow but steady sales–will always pay off for anyone who’s after the long-term successes and not the flash-in-the-pan spike so they can move onto the Next Big Thing. I think most authors are more interested in the fame for our names (not that money ain’t great
))
Again, thanks for the articles and advice. I’m happy to learn I have already master 5 of the 7 point plan. I would’ve guessed I was in far worse shape than that!!
-sry
Sarah, The Webbiegrrl Writer
Coming Home (Dicky’s Story)
A Romantic Comedy / Jewish Inspirational by Sarah R. Yoffa (March, 21, 2011)
Sarah,
Thank you! The 1000 True Fan thinking is exactly spot on for writers as well. When in Pulphouse we published Harlan Ellison and he had a rabid 1,000 true fans (of which I am still one) who would buy anything he did without a look. So I know this is very true thinking and many, many writers live on the thinking.
For an indie publisher, you are correct, it is a form of hybrid of the true fan idea. Instead of looking for fans, you make your fans by selling to stores. Pulphouse had almost 200 true store fans, stores that would seriously look at everything we put out because their customers liked what we did. In this instance, I’m just trying to get people to look at 100 sales outlets that are dependable. And once you win over a store owner and get they ordering from you, they will be ready to do so again. In essence, the store owner becomes a fan of your publishing company.
And then, through the sales through the stores and Kindle and so on, you find your 1,000 true fans who are readers. But the key is early on you have to find them, and that’s what this run of articles is about: How to get your books to your fans.
So thanks, Sarah. Very much appreciated. Read her link, folks.
Hi, Dean. I just checked out XinXii and read their terms of use. I wanted to let people know that they don’t pay out automatically. Once your account has accumulated at least 20 Euros, you can request a payment, but you have to actually ask for it. I don’t believe Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords have this provision. Am I wrong?
Here’s a quote from their website:
“The disbursement of proceeds is not automatic. Starting from a sum of EUR 20, the person entitled to the disbursement may request it through a mouse click in his personal user area.”
Tori Minard
You are correct, Tori, that’s how they do it, and no one on this side of the pond does it that way.
Another note on XinXii – they don’t distribute in many ebook formats. From their FAQ: “…We accept 15 filetypes including Word (.doc), PDF (.pdf), text (.txt), PowerPoint (.ppt), Excel (.xls), Postscript (.ps), mp3 or E-PUB…” In addition, they don’t do any conversion – what you put up is what they sell.
Putting work up is very easy. I have two stories up – a novella and a novel – both of which I put up in e-pub format just last week. They’re getting good visibility; we’ll see how sales go
Thanks, Lauryn, do keep us informed. It will be a month or so before I think of going over there.
And Erik, yup, the writing is the best promotion there is. Write the next and the next. That’s the key.
Thank you so much! I just started indie publishing and am looking for as much advice as possible. I have the blog up and running and I’m tweeting away like a canary. The problem is I only have one novel! As a publisher, I better light a fire under my writer’s arse to get more titles and those sales numbers you’re talking about.
Dean, I wonder if you have any thoughts about Overdrive, the ebook supplier to libraries.
I like Overdrive and just haven’t gotten to that part of the discussion yet. Just as doing a special library edition using a CreateSpace ISBN will get you into the library market that way as well. Library sales are another animal and important to publishers as well and I’ll spend some time on it in a future chapter.
Hi, Dean,
I always enjoy your common-sense approach, both here and with “Killing the Sacred Cows of Publishing.” Got a question, though:
I’m in that odd middle-ground: I am traditionally published, but by multiple small presses rather than the bigger NYC-types that get into the bookstores. They do what they can as far as cover, sending out some (not a lot) of review copies, etc., and distribute to multiple places, but for the most part, they will help me, but I need to promote if I want to get sales.
I have little control over the seven items you list, and I have a website, Tweet, blog, virtual book tour, do conferences, tell Mom–and I just started a mailing list hoping to grow those 1000 Faithful Fans. My books have won both literary and popular awards and gotten great reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and Midwest Book Reviews, among others. I am always working on the next book and wrote three last year and plan to have three this year. Yet I’m not making sales commensurate to my efforts, if that makes sense.
Any suggestions?
Karina, not a clue, to be honest. Lots of factors. And I do mean a lot of different things. One, by selling into small press, the limits are automatic I’m afraid. Getting great reviews and winning literary awards are nifty for the next book as advertisement, but as Grisham once said, if he started winning awards and the critics liked him, he knew he was in trouble with sales. Fact of life I’m afraid. Literary fiction does not sell, popular fiction does. That could be part of the problem. But my gut sense is that you are selling to small press and giving up huge percentages and control and that’s the bottom line. But again, it could be something else completely. Or maybe you are selling fine for what you are writing and the presses you are selling it to. And you need to adjust the goal line.
These posts are made for indie publishers with complete control. Selling to any kind of traditional side you just need to let them do the work and write the next book. Your promotion won’t help them I’m afraid. Even smaller presses.
By “literary” award, I meant judged by the writing, as opposed to popular awards where publicity is key. I write SFF and comedic horror. The reason I brought it up was just to demonstrate that I can write well–but writing well isn’t resulting in selling well.
Thanks for the reply, even if it wasn’t what I was hoping for.
Karina, your genre is also one of the problems. Science fiction is one of the lowest-selling genres and horror is even lower I’m afraid. And again, small press in both those areas is automatic low sales. I know, I had one once. (grin)
You might want to just do them yourself, be an indie publisher, and then let the numbers build over time. The “produce” model of having to sell a lot of copies quickly is really handicapped when going to a small press. But if you do your work indie, then you can get into the long-sell thinking and out of the produce model. Say your goal is to sell 10,000 copies of your book. Nice goal for a science fiction novel, and off the charts for horror these days unless you can call it “romantic suspense” or “paranormal romance.”
Selling it to a small press will get you a few hundred sales. No help. But indie publishing, say your book sold 50 copies total a month across all outlets, all 100 I am working toward. That means in one year you would have sold 600 copies. And in 16 years it would have sold the 10,000 copies and still be selling. I know, long term thinking is hard, but are you still going to be writing books in 16 years? Sure. And that means a lot of books will be selling and if you hit big with one along the way, it will pull all the others up with it. Just a thought.
Couple little things about Xinxii.com. I’ve dipped my toe in there. For the most part a very simple outlet to add, but a few things are different. You have to create your own sample file for one thing, which has to be in doc or pdf format basically. Also, if you want to sell your work in epub you have to create your own epub version. Xinxii does no converting, what you upload is what you sell. No big deal, but one extra step to be aware of, for KISS fans like myself.
A couple quirks — not sure if it’s operator error (me), or site issues, but linking your facebook and twitter to your profile don’t seem to do anything. Also, almost every time I upload something new, the site changes my default currency from dollars to euros. I change it back which causes the price of the most recent upload to go from $0.99 to $1.29. I fixed that, and everything is fine until the next upload. Again no big deal since I know now to catch it.
I’ve been uploading each file twice, once in epub and once as a pdf. Unfortunately, no way to upload multiple formats on one screen. The pdf versions do seem to get about 25% more page views than the epub versions, so I’ll keep doing that for now.
http://www.xinxii.com/adocs.php/en?aid=18003
No sales yet. The site is very small yet. 25 page views will keep you in near to top of the most-viewed list all day.
Thanks, Michael. Great to know. Appreciated.
Dean,
Thanks (and you’re welcome). I can’t believe it took me a month to get back here to read your response to my comment. *ack* Hey, actually, I didn’t say it to get a response. I said it to share what I felt was important and useful information for indie authors and I’m so glad you agree with (isn’t everyone always glad when others agree with them? *LOL*)
Actually, I came back here to get the URL to give to an indie author from the UK I know who just posted to her Facebook feed that since Amazon is barring all indie authors from shameless self-promotion, she’s ready to give up. She’s gotten 1000 sales–more than 1000. She can’t give up. She’s got the salesmanship to make it and with some hint of future sucess, she could easily be prolific enough to turn out 10 titles to sell at 100 stores and voila, have her 1000 fans
I hope she comes here and reads your article. I’m not sure she will (if you do, Ali hiya! :: WAVES :: )
She and I don’t always agree (even rub each other the wrong way often enough) but her example inspires me just as my example (I’m told) inspires others. We all have to remember we inspire each other. We don’t “just” sell books to fans. We make a community. We make an industry! Wow, I sound like a frikkin politician on the campaign trail now. Oops.
-sry
Sarah, The Webbiegrrl Writer << NOT compaigning for anything.
Coming Home (Dicky’s Story)
A Romantic Comedy / Jewish Inspirational by Sarah R. Yoffa (March, 21, 2011)
p.s. I’ve been waiting to hear someone, somewhere talk about Overdrive. I really want to get a CreateSpace DTB done up of my book but I ran the numbers and I would actually LOSE money doing a POD of my book with CreateSpace due to the fact it’s a long novel. It’s not a short book. I think 80-100 pages (max) is the limit of profitability with CreateSpace. I hope you get into numbers and an analysis of what “traits” (e.g., length, genre, prior DTBs published versus none, etc.) it’ll take to make a DTB worth going for versus just sticking to the eBook.
Any clue when your Overdrive/library article will be coming out?
Sorry, Sarah, you are just getting your information somewhere really strange. I have a bunch of POD books up. For example, Kristine Kathryn Rusch novel is 6 x 9 inch trim and over 400 pages. We sell it for $15.99 and make almost $5.00 per book on Amazon sales and I get them for around $5.00 for personal copies which I can sell to stores at a steep discount and still make nice money per copy. So no clue what you are talking about. Might want to check your figures.