Each workshop is 6 weeks long and is limited to twelve people. (It will take you about four hours per week to do each of these.) These are the starting dates of upcoming workshops.
All have openings. For sign-up and more information about each workshop, click the Online Workshop tab at the top of the page.
Starting July
Class #22… July 8th … World Building
Class #23… July 9th … Plot Your Novel
Class #24… July 10th … Designing Book Covers
Class #25… July 11th … Designing Book Interiors
Class #26… July 12th … Essentials
Starting August
Class E-1… August 5th... Promotion
Class #27… August 5th … Ideas to Story
Class E-2… August 6th... Promotion
Class #28… August 6th … Openings
Class #29… August 7th … Genre Structure
Class #30… August 8th … Pitches and Blurbs
Class #31… August 9th … Cliffhangers
Starting September
Class #32… Sept 2nd … Essentials
Class #33… Sept 3rd … Plot Your Novel
Class #34… Sept 4th … World Building
Class #35… Sept 4th … Pacing
Class #36… Sept 5th … Designing Book Covers
Class #37… Sept 6th … Designing Book Interiors
Starting October
Class #1… Oct 7th … Pitches and Blurbs
Class #2… Oct 8th … Promotion
Class #3… Oct 9th … Genre Structure
Class #4… Oct 10th … Openings
Class #5… Oct 10th … Cliffhangers
Class #6… Oct 11th … Pacing Your Stories
Starting November
Class #7… Nov 4th … Essentials
Class #8… Nov 4th … Ideas to Story
Class #9… Nov 5th … Plot Your Novel
Class #10… Nov 6th … Designing Book Covers
Class #11… Nov 7th … Designing Book Interiors
Class #12… Nov 8th … Promotions
Starting December
Class #13… Dec 2nd … World Building
Class #14… Dec 3rd … Pacing Your Stories
Class #15… Dec 4th … Cliffhangers
Class #16… Dec 5th … Genre Structure
Class #17… Dec 5th … Pitches and Blurbs
Class #18… Dec 6th … Promotions
Sign-up and more information under Online Workshops tab at the top of the page.
There’s nothing wrong with being a bestseller, though, is there?
Heaven’s no, nothing wrong at all with being a bestseller. Hell, I’ve been on most lists and a number of times on the Times extended and twice on the Times list under other names. I say under my name on every book USA Today Bestseller. I’m proud of being on that list and in the paper a number of times over the years. So nothing at all wrong with it, and hitting an Amazon “bestseller” list can push sales for a short time. But the focus, the big “importance” of being a bestseller is gone and also being a “bestseller” doesn’t mean as much money as it used to. And anyone who focuses on only being a “bestseller” is going the wrong way, and that’s what Konrath was saying and what I’ve been saying. Slow and steady and writing and putting up more product wins this race by a long distance.
Dean,
This is what you’ve been saying for the longest time…selling steadily over a long period of time is where it’s at.
Whoops, forgot to add “selling a small amount steadily over a long period of time.”
Don’t have to sell a huge amount to make a decent living.
Great posts, Dean. Thanks for passing them on. It is an exciting time. It reminds me of an R.E.M. lyric, “It’s the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine!”
Enjoyed the blog and the information –
I do remember the times when the Top Ten 40 actually meant something –
I was never into the Times Best Seller List because I was an avid reader of SF/F, which is still my preferred reading material.
The paradigm has changed – but as a writer, I am happy to see the change.
Cyn
This message you three have been shouting for so long is such a comforting thing. It’s great to know that I can just work hard and publish books, and things will start to happen. This paradigm shift is an amazing thing that is only going to get better, I think.
Ramon, actually not a paradigm shift. Those of us who have been in the business a long time eventually learned that just writing better books and writing more books won the day over decades. The only shift now is from what the romance writers started back around 1996 or so when they decided that they needed to self-promote their own books and no matter how much some of us shouted that was silly and the math didn’t work, the idea caught on as a thing all writers needed to do. A myth, in other words. And all logical thought went out the window.
So the shift you are seeing in a few writers who are writers first, not authors, is the freedom to not only just keep writing and having fun, but the freedom to now not have to fight traditional systems unless they want to. Choice. It’s all about choice now. You can promote all you want if you are an author and some people actually have fun doing that. Others love the writing process and hate the idea of promoting anything. Both work for the people behind the choice.
But now writers don’t have to listen any more to all the authors and the myths about promotion. That is finally starting to get through to a few people.
But that said, let me add something “snarky” as people have accused me of being at times. (grin) Don’t mention any of this to anyone on Kindle Select. (grin… Sorry, just couldn’t help that bit of snarkness. It still just goes to choice. You can chose to limit your sales under the guise of making more quick money in quick promotion, or you can work for the long haul and value your own work and believe that readers all over the world want to see it. Choice. I chose writing a lot and letting people all over the world have a chance at it. But that’s just me. My opinion. Nothing more.)
Back when there was only one list, I tended to avoid the books that got on it. There are so many books in the universe, and so many that really can capture my heart, and the typical best seller almost always seemed like a “safe” choice that would appeal to everybody a little, but didn’t make me love them. They didn’t compete with those midlist books I fell for.
Those midlist books do get to the best seller lists, of course, but I’ve usually already heard of them.
As a reader, I am so jazzed by the downfall of the best seller list. It means I can find the books I want again.
I don’t think I even want to be a bestseller. A “comfortable living wage” for me is a great deal less for me than it is for a lot of folks. I’ll be elated when I hit that.
Not to say I don’t have selling goals to hit after I reach that point, but even my top goal for earnings is well below what any bestseller status would provide. Though I have decided what I’d do with the money if God blesses me with a windfall.
Thanks for clearing that up, Dean. As for the KDP Select. You should see some of the things readers are saying. Some now refuse to buy anything by a writer who has put any work in Select. ANYTHING. So they are basically boycotting said author. Now while I would never limit my exposure with Select, people are reacting very VERY harshly to this. This KDP Select thing has caused a lot of anger and hard feelings.
The fracturing and shuffling of the lists — of the ability of a media organ like the NYT to semi-dictate who gets to have national prestige — makes me wonder (again) if the real future of publishing isn’t in micro-audiences? If you can gather a few hundred to a few thousand loyal fans who buy you at a rate of 50% or better, on every project, you stand to make some money — assuming you’re independent and can get a 70% cut, versus the pennies a TPB gives per sale, once a book earns out.
Even 1,000 people x $4.99 US per e-title \ .70 = $3,493 US.
Assuming word of mouth boosts you a bit, and you claim a few thousand more? For the next release, maybe?
5,000 people x $4.99 US \ .70 = $17,465 US.
If I never, ever touched a NYT list or a US Today list but I could be confident that my latest indie novel was going to net me anywhere near $17,465 US I would not complain. No sir. I would not complain one damn bit. And if I strung together a series, all of the books earning at various rates throughout each month… hmmmm…..
Well, the math seems to point back to the Kevin J. Anderson “popcorn” mode: write your ass off, and let the market take care of the rest. Assuming you’ve put in the hours and your skill is not truly beginner-level, eventually, you stand a chance of something (or several somethings) doing decently for you.
Excellent points, Brad.
Once I got past some of the money myths, I’ve always thought in terms of baseball. Being from north Texas, I’ve had to suffer for years watching the Rangers smack home run after home run but never have a winning season. Along comes Ron Washington, teaches them how to play small ball, and that along with some decent pitching put the Rangers in the World Series two years in a row.
One of the first things I had to accept before I could Get Serious About Writing is that I didn’t have to be a bestseller to make money. It’s one of the myths Dean talks about, as you know. Now, I just focus on playing “small ball,” so to speak. Do my best to get the best from each story idea, slowly build up my bibliography and, thus, sales. Sometimes that’ll be a single. Sometimes a triple. Sometimes a home run. And sometimes, maybe more often than not, I’ll strike out.
But just as baseball is a LONG season, writing is a long-term pursuit. Can’t remember who said it, but one Big League manager said, “This isn’t football. We do this every day.” Yep!
All that really matters is who’s playing in October.
Thre’s a very interesting map over at:
http://thepeacefulentrepreneur.com/the-two-types-of-internet-biz/
It shows (as it says) two internet-based business models and there’s a lovely explanation of both types included. The quote that hits home here:
“…spending two years getting your blog to rank #1 in Google
so you can retire to a tropical island at 40 may sound great,
but if Google tweaks their search algorithm, you’re starting
from scratch. Best to diversify.”
Replace “Google” with “Amazon” and you can see how this links into this discussion.
P.S. I’m not affiliated in any way with this site, just found it interesting.
Thank you for bringing up that point, Lee. I remember when Amazon changed their algorithms in late spring 2011. A lot of Indies howled at how their sales dropped. I saw relatively fewer say their sales increased with the change.
Then there were a third group, that I was a part of. Some titles tanked in sales, while others picked up. In the end it came out an almost even wash.
The Indies I saw who were impacted the most were those who had very few titles out there. The ones who rode out the storm, did as well as before, or even did better, were those who had a bunch out there. Then there were the lottery winners who had a few titles up that did better, but I didn’t see too many of those.
As I prefer not to be counting on a lottery winning strike for the success of my writing career, I looked at the other winners. Quantity of the backlist and diversification among genres or sub-genres keeps coming up as the winning long-term plan.
Thanks for linking this post.
I’d lost my focus for a while, but this post has reminded me of the importance of constantly producing new material and how that new material gets better with the constant practice of creating it. Not just better stories, but a better product for our readers to buy.
Dean,
I’ve been at a writer’s conference all weekend in NYC. I’ve been sitting through the sessions, both on writing and the business of publishing, all day and then coming up to the hotel room and reading you and Kris in the evenings. Your stuff on myths, both writing myths and publishing myths, is fantastic.
My only complaint is it’s turning me into even more of an outlier than I already was. I told two ladies at my table today that as fiction writers, they shouldn’t worry much about building a platform and should concentrate on writing books, and that they could find readers by publishing their work digitally and playing with pricing and things like that. Don’t think they believed me, even though I know it’s true from my own experience as well as everything you’ve been saying (I’d just never heard anyone say it before!).
BTW, re KDP Select, I’m enrolled … but kinda by accident. I signed up without paying attention (I know, I know) and only then realized the exclusivity price tag. Automatic reenrollment is turned off and I look forward to being back in all markets come March–hopefully with two new titles.
Thanks for putting out so much incredible info and common sense. It’s changing my business and my writing life, and I’m grateful.
Thanks, Rachel. And hope you had fun at the conference. It’s always a matter of picking out the details of information that fits what you are doing and ignoring everything that doesn’t fit. That’s why when I am teaching at a writer’s conference, I also attend other sessions when I have time and stand in the back so I can leave if I need to if the instructor or instructors are just not talking in a way I can learn from.
But even with that, I enjoy going to them and often learn lots of detail stuff. I’m only doing one teaching gig outside of the teaching here this year, and I hope to learn from others teaching as well, and I’m attending the Writers of the Future awards ceremony, so hope to learn a ton there as well.
By the way, the one special writer’s workshop I am teaching at is the Superstars Writing Seminar in Las Vegas the last of April, early May. You can get information at http://superstarswritingseminars.com/
And by the way, go to that web site, scan down to the Tracy Hickman story and just listen. Trust me, if you haven’t heard Tracy talk about this, you should. In my opinion, every writer should hear that story. Stunning and very lucky it was recorded. Go listen.
Thanks, I will. I wish I could attend the conference in LV but am thinking neither money nor schedule will allow for it.
This weekend has been fun, just interesting to come in with such a different viewpoint from the majority. THAT, however, is the story of my life, starting with when I was homeschooled as a kid and never had to sit in those rows you’ve talked about elsewhere … you find out as an adult that your paradigm is VERY different from almost anyone else’s. In everything.
Thanks for helping me reach that point as a writer/indie publisher as well
.
I remember that Story. It was so very moving. He hit it right on the mark.
I haven’t been compulsively checking the sales on my first book, but I do know they broke 100 last week, after being out three weeks. Thanks for making that feel like more of a success. Your perspective is always so refreshing. I appreciate it.
Thanks for pointing out Tracy’s story. That was incredible. I had never heard it.
I was just writing a post for my blog on money, and I paused to consider a $5000 advance.
If you look at it from the investment perspective, and put that $5000 into a treasury bond at 3 percent, you’d be making $150 a year.
To match that, the book would only have to sell about 50 copies a year at $4.99. 80 copies a year if you priced it at $2.99.
And if you had a $5000 advance, a large portion would go to taxes before you invested it. You’d have to work twice as hard as your editor would demand rewrites, and other tasks related to dancing to their tune.
As an investment, a failure at self-publishing is darned good. If only people were smart enough about money to see it.