If you want to sail the Atlantic, single-handed, then you have nobody to blame if something goes wrong on your trip; if you are an enthusiastic amateur tennis player, or an ardent professional, then you have no fall back, no scape-goat, as it were, to point the finger at and release a torrent of invective whenever you might lose.
Much the same can be said for the writer. The writer of any written original word. You are on your own, full stop. You decide when to write; you decide what to write. You never have to clock in or out. You can take coffee breaks whenever you feel like it. You can go to the bathroom and browse your favourite magazine to put off going back to the PC. You make the rules.
This doesn’t suit everybody. Many would-be writers, are not cut out to be writers, regardless of whether or not they might have developed the greatest single most original storyline for a novel in their heads. But getting it from your brain to the computer screen is the tricky part. If only we could copy & paste! Maybe contact Microsoft or Apple and suggest that they might develop an app which burns your most brilliant ideas on to that blank screen in front of you. And of course, that app would also be grammatically and spellingly correct! Ups!
Sartre House by Patrick J. Power
But, (there’s always a but) writing can be good also. I wouldn’t go so far as to describe it as being fun. When your fingers seemed to have found that delicate touch on the keyboard, as if they were creating magic words just like Clapton, or BB King, or some other impresario creating magical sounds on their respective sets of taut strings; that’s when it becomes so worth it. And a little later when you emerge from your happy daze and take a well-earned break from your endeavours and bask in the knowledge that one day, because of what you have just engraved onto your page, either the Man Booker judges, or the Pulitzer people will be frantically searching out your life’s details from that agent of yours who it took many heart-breaking years to find.
Am I coming across to you sounding like some facetious pompous ass who thinks he knows all about the art/act of writing? Well, let me state very clearly, that I do not! If I sound facetious it’s probably because when all those years ago, at age eighteen, just graduated secondary school in the South-East of Ireland, I was reliably informed by my English teacher that whatever else I was about to do with my life, that I should begin writing at once and continue to write for the remainder of my life; that I did not. I thought I knew better. Live my life first and then write about it. But I don’t think it works that way. So, I took that sage advice on board and stored it away for forty years. But to my credit, I think, I carried out the, “whatever else” segment of his advice to the letter.
The following day, I took a flight to Boston with another eighteen-year-old and soon after started out on an overland trip from Boston to Buenos Aires. Following on from that memorable (and dangerous) trip I have worked as; a wheat farmer; Jazz Club manager, on the Upper-West Side of NY; oil-rig worker; construction worker in both Twin Towers in New York; an English teacher in Prague; fronted two different Rock & Roll band’s in New York and Dublin; event manager at a major Music Festival; landed a Soccer Scholarship to Uni of ILL in Chicago; landscape designer in Boston; lived in a Volkswagen camping-bus for six months in Europe, whilst Busking for a living; studied Film & Editing in Waterford, Ireland; produced a round dozen Documentaries; lived in six different countries whilst touching my toes into the waters of another forty, before deciding to move to Belgium four years ago and begin to take my writing seriously.
I tried every manner and means to escape the decision because I think I was afraid of failure. The greatest curse and drawback to becoming a writer, (a published writer, whether it be down the traditional route of, finding an agent/ agent finding a publisher/ publisher deciding to take you on, or, as I did, and so many more writers are doing, going it alone!) is that ever-present latent fear of failure. Those doubt ridden moments of assuming that your efforts of that day’s scratchings are simply not up to scratch! When you pick up a novel of one of your favourite authors and get that tremendous shock to your system on the realization that this person is so far ahead of you that you possibly may be wasting your time.
And this is the pivotal moment that I’ve been striving to get to over the past 800 words. This is the moment to dig deep into yourself and decide that you are not going to throw in the towel. You can handle the periods of writer’s block; the fact that your close friends become slightly embarrassed anymore to ask: How’s the book coming along? When the 27th rejection slip comes into your otherwise empty mail-box from an agent who you are most certain in your head (heart actually) has not even read your submission.
And there we are, back to that place again. Alone again, naturally! (song lyric from the 1970’s) Decision time! Are you going to stand up and walk away, or, sit back down and beat the crap out of the keys? Beat them into submission! Own them! Devour them! Write the best you’ve ever written! You know it’s true-the hell with anyone who doesn’t!
Don’t stop! Write, write, write! Till your fingers bleed! Till the sun goes down! Till the sun rises again! And then, write some more! And love it when you’re doing it!
As an old Irish proverb goes: Live life to the full, my son (or daughter) ‘cause you’ll be dead long enough!
I don’t offer advice but I’ll repeat a piece from someone else.
Start with short stories. Hone your craft with short, sharp stories. Easier to tackle a 6th draft of a short story than the onerous task of a 6th draft of a long first novel.
Then when you have finished honing your craft, you can begin your masterpiece!
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Wondering how to distribute your book to your reader base? That all depends on how and where you publish it. In this post, we’ll look at the book distribution options available to independent authors.
Ebook-only Distribution Options
You may not need to produce a paperback version of your book if you plan to distribute it online only. When you publish an .epub through Kobo, or a .mobi through Amazon, your book will only be available through these companies’ online distribution networks.
In Canada, Kobo is partnered with Chapters Indigo. So, when you publish an .epub through Kobo Writing Life, it will show up on both Kobo and Chapters Indigo websites. Books that are published to Amazon through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), on the other hand, will only be available for sale through Amazon’s ecommerce site.
Digital Book Distribution Options
The term “digital book” can refer to ebooks, paperbacks, and even hardcovers. Online worldwide book distributors, such as Amazon and Ingram Content Group, utilize print-on-demand (POD) technology to sell physical books online. In other words, they won’t print and store any physical copies of your paperback/hardcover book in a large warehouse anywhere.
Instead, they’ll store only the digital cover and interior files that you’ve uploaded to their sites. And they will print, bind, and ship only as many copies as someone buys from them at any given time. Of course, this saves you from having to print any upfront copies whatsoever. If someone goes to their site to buy ten copies of your book, then ten copies will be printed, bound, and shipped to that buyer. If another person buys only one, then they will print, bind, and ship only one—hence the term “print on demand.” This is a definite pro, isn’t it?
Now here are the cons: digital printers can only handle certain trim sizes and paper weights. This limits you to certain book trim sizes, binding types, and paper stocks/colours.
Traditional Distribution Options
If you want your books sold on traditional booksellers’ bookshelves, you must play by the peculiar rules set by the traditional book supply chain. And, believe me, peculiar is the best word to describe these old rules.
As well, most “bricks and mortar” booksellers and libraries will only purchase their books through established distributors such as Ingram Content Group. They simply won’t deal with individual authors on anything more than a per-event consignment basis.
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9 Things Star Trek Can Teach You About Writing with Michael LaRocca
1) Readers Matter
In the first STAR TREK film, Gene Roddenberry finally had the budget to create all the footage he wanted of ENTERPRISE just sitting there, looking real purty, and by gum he was gonna use it. While I don’t mind watching all those minutes, 22 or 187 or whatever it was, most folks think that’s too much. If most of your readers say something needs to be changed or added or deleted, listen to them.
2) Characters Matter
When the second pilot was filmed, it was pre-ordained that William Shatner was the star. Since Spock was the only character from the first pilot to also appear in the second pilot, it was safe to assume Leonard Nimoy was a costar. McCoy and the chemistry just kinda happened.
When I write, character comes first, and plot etc. unfold from there. Even if you start from some other place, character always matters. Nothing happens unless it happens to somebody, and that somebody is who your reader cares about regardless of species.
When you write, have some sort of plan, and have some control, but be flexible. If your story’s telling you to go in a certain direction, listen to it. That might be your characters talking to you. (And yes, I know you made them all up. Don’t bother me with details.)
3) Turn Weaknesses into Strengths
Why did the ENTERPRISE have a transporter? Because it wasn’t in the TV show’s budget to film launch and landing sequences for shuttlecraft on various and sundry new planets every week. This forced the writers to invent the transporter, and that’s some seriously cool tech. STAR TREK wouldn’t be STAR TREK without it.
4) Forget Grammar
Okay, not really. Spock used English with scientific precision and it wasn’t even his first language. Speaking as your editor, please don’t forget grammar. You can break any rule you want if you have a good reason. Never break a rule from ignorance. But if you’ve got a reason, go for it. That’s how we as authors change the language.
Why did Shakespeare invent 10% of the words he used? Because if he’d invented 20% or 50% he’d have confused too many of his viewers.
Meanwhile, the “rule” about splitting infinitives is totally bogus. “To boldly go” is a perfectly good English phrase. In Latin, it isn’t possible to split an infinitive because “to go” (for example) is one word. You can’t write “to boldly go” in Latin because “to go” is only one word. Someone decided English grammar should follow Latin grammar — that sounds like some of Noah Webster’s rubbish — and was soundly shouted down for being too stupid to live. Feel free to boldly split infinitives like James Brown split tight pants. Then jump back and kiss yourself.
5) Wishful Thinking Is Allowed
In the STAR TREK future, everybody quotes long passages of Shakespeare from memory. If I say it like that, it might sound hard to believe, but in the context of the STAR TREK world, it fits. It’s allowed. Dagnabbit, people should quote Shakespeare from memory. I taught a customer’s cockatiel to recite Hamlet’s soliloquy without warning the humans. I never could teach him context, though.
6) It’s Not About the Money
Okay, sometimes it was about the money. But in roughly two years of the original show and roughly ten years of Next Generation, it wasn’t about the money. In most of the films, including some of the stinkers, it wasn’t about the money.
I’ve always said that you should write what you’d like to read, then find readers who share your interests. Yep, that’s what Gene Roddenberry did. He believed in world peace, racial and gender integration, trying to shake off old prejudices to the best of our limited abilities, freedom of religion and non-religion, true equality for women rather than today’s lip service, gay rights, cooperation rather than killing, the Prime Directive of non-interference in viable developing cultures, war as a last and not a first resort, and seeing just how much political and religious commentary he could slip past the censors, who weren’t as bright as the average STAR TREK viewer. (I like to think the censors weren’t always as clueless as they pretended to be.)
7) Choose Your Battles
That’s what Roddenberry had to do every time he butted heads with TV executives. It’s what I do as an author when I disagree with my editor, and what I expect an author to do when I’m his or her editor. “I’ll say Starfleet pays its officers in credits if you let the white guy kiss the black girl.” Or whatever.
8) YOU Are The Writer
Remember when I said to listen to your readers? That doesn’t mean you have to always agree with them. When Gene Roddenberry’s vision put him at odds with the majority, he went with his vision. We should all do that. Such judgment calls are what separate the great writers from the merely ordinary. And to pull all that off within the confines of a 1960s TV show is nothing short of extraordinary. You could do far worse than to follow his example.
9) Posterity Matters
How long has it been since Captain Kirk first flexed those biceps and paused in funny places during his speechifying? It’s been over 50 years since Roddenberry started writing STAR TREK, and we’re still talking about it. That’s what we write for. I don’t want you to love my writing now and forget it tomorrow. A novel is not a blog or a tweet. Write something timeless. Something to annoy future generations the way it does your immediately family, something teachers can torture students with, something that just will not die.
Technical editing since 1991. Business editing since 2006. MichaelEdits.com
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If you’ve ever wondered what sorts of writing courses you should take to become a better writer, this post is for you. Here are 3 reasons why reading helps writing in the most useful ways.
3 Reasons Why Reading Helps Writing
Why Reading Helps Writing Reason #1: You’ll Pick Up New Skills
In a recent guest post, one of PPG’s top guest bloggers, Michael LaRocca, talked about why he is a voracious reader. Here’s what he had to say:
I read voraciously, a habit I recommend to any author who doesn’t already have it. You’ll subconsciously pick up on what does and doesn’t work. Characterization, dialogue, pacing, plot, story, setting, description, etc. But more importantly, someone who doesn’t enjoy reading will never write something that someone else will enjoy reading. (LaRocca, 2019)
Even Stephen King agreed with this when he said, “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
So, maybe you want to pay money for some writing courses. Fair enough. But, perhaps, your first step toward becoming a better writer is simply to pick up some books in your chosen genre and start reading. Start learning that way first.
Why Reading Helps Writing Reason #2: You’ll Be Inspired to Write
Whenever I get writer’s block (which we all get sometimes), I read something to cure myself quickly. In fact, writers who spend even as little as half an hour per day reading another person’s work often find that they are more creative during their own writing sessions.
It doesn’t even have to be another book or anything related to your topic matter at all; it can be an online article, magazine, newspaper, or blog. Sometimes, the least likely source can inspire the greatest creativity. The most important point here is to keep yourself open and aware of the infinite pool of ideas all around you. Whatever it takes to get that first sentence out, do it. From there, thoughtful inspiration can—and will—take care of the rest. It always does.
I think this quote by Steven Wright sums it up well: “It usually helps me write by reading — somehow the reading gear in your head turns the writing gear.” So true!
Why Reading Helps Writing Reason #3: You’ll Have a Healthier Brain
Researchers observe the brain patterns of literary PhD candidates while they’re reading a Jane Austen novel. The fMRI images suggest that literary reading provides “a truly valuable exercise of people’s brains.”
I think we’ve always known this. But now there is scientific proof.
Creativity is similar to muscularity in that it will begin to atrophy with a lack of regular stimulation. Just as even the finest athletes have those days when they must dig a bit deeper to find the will to carry on, all writers will have the same experience. Reading will help you keep your brain healthy which, in turn, will help your writing.
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The PPG Publisher’s Blog has so much valuable content from independent “indie” authors; but, until today, it didn’t contain any advice straight from a traditionally published author. Peter Davidson has changed that for us by providing this guest post, and I’m very grateful to him for his contribution. Thank you. Here’s what Peter has to say…
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I am the author or co-author of twenty-eight published books. Through it all, I have found the following to be very helpful in my writing:
Develop a clear concept of the work and the intended reader audience before you start writing, even though these may evolve as you actually get into the project,
If you have difficulties figuring out a particular scene or approach to a topic, literally “sleep on it.” That is, as you fall asleep, rehash in your mind everything you know about that which has you stumped. Your subconscious mind will mull It over during the night and when you awake, the solution will likely be there for you. It works for me every time.
Proofread, proofread, proofread before submitting your work to any literary agent or publisher.
Spend more time on the first sentence, and first paragraph, of your query letter than you spend on any other part of your work. If it doesn’t grab the literary agent or editor’s attention, it won’t matter how fabulous your manuscript is because no one will ever see it.
Never, Never, Never quit.
Peter Davidson’s Non-Fiction Insights
I have had a half dozen non-fiction books published by major publishers and have had several literary agents through the years. The question that is always in a writer’s mind is this: “What is it that literary agents and publishing house editors are looking for in a manuscript for representation or publication? Is it a unique topic? Brilliant writing? Dazzling art work on the cover? What is it?”
Well, I have found that the number one thing literary agents and publishers are looking for in a non-fiction book is this: Do you have a significant PLATFORM?
Platform means: do you have a built-in audience for the book? Do you have a nationally-syndicated radio or television program that has million of viewers who will rush out and buy your new book? Do you have hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, related to the topic of your book, who likewise will be eager to buy the book? Are you on the lecture circuit, making presentations to tens or hundreds of thousands of participants per year? In other words, what can you do to market the book?
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So, if you haven’t done so, get started building a social media presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social media or create your own blog and build up your following . Also, look for other ways to be in a position to help market your book. Your platform will be one of the most important elements of your non-fiction book, if not the most important element.
Before I go, please check out my author page on amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/-/BOOMNT8QKC. Also check out my new book, PENNY, that was released June 5, 2017. It is the story of the last U.S. penny ever minted of 95% copper, on October 22, 1982, the hands it passed through, the things it saw and heard, and the stories it can tell.
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In this post, Jeannette DiLouie asks: do you really have what it takes to write a book? You may be surprised by her answer.
So you wrote a book? Congratulations! That’s amazing.
But do you really have what it takes? Are you a good enough writer to reach the audience you want without making a fool out of yourself? How do you actually know your writing is worthwhile?
Those are questions every single writer wonders at least from time to time no matter how many books he or she has written. Sometimes they pop into our heads on their own. Other times, they grow from a single negative review we get on Amazon or GoodReads or maybe in person.
In those cases, it doesn’t matter how many compliments we’ve gotten and how many positive reviews we’ve received. Our personal doubts or outside critiques – constructive or otherwise – can cut through our egos like chainsaws through butter.
The resulting mess is time-consuming to clean up, to say the least.
[Jeannette DiLouie] Do You Really Have What It Takes to Write a Book?
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But guess what? You have, in fact, written a book! So clearly you do have what it takes. You put in the time and effort necessary to start, continue and finish your manuscript. So the question you should be asking yourself isn’t whether you have what it takes. You need to switch gears completely by focusing not on approval so much but improvement.
What you really need to be asking is: How do I strengthen my current book or my next novel or my writing style in general?
Because there’s always room for improvement. Always. And it doesn’t matter whether you’ve just completed your first manuscript or you’re on your 25th. We writers never perfect our craft, only strengthen it.
Fortunately for us, there are a number of great ways to grow, mainly by seeking out other people’s opinions and advice. This could be by:
Finding a writers’ critique group: Just about anywhere you look, there are writing communities to be found. One might be offered through your local church or synagogue, on meetup.com, or perhaps posted on Craigslist. And if for some reason you can’t find one in any of those hotspots, then consider starting one up yourself! After all, if you build it, they could come.
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Getting a writing buddy: While it’s always nice to get multiple opinions about your work, a writing buddy has the potential to be more consistent than a writers’ group. With the latter, you might be able to submit a chapter every six weeks, whereas with a writing buddy, you could be swapping story segments every 10 days or less. Just be careful if you go this route that you’re getting just as much as you’re giving. There are some very selfish writing buddies out there that you need to be on guard against.
Getting beta readers: Beta readers are great resources to utilize if you know how to find them. These are random reviewers out there on the internet who will critique your manuscript for free. Though – warning – some of them can be pretty harsh. You asked them for their opinion, and believe me, they’re going to give it to you. While you can simply send out social media requests for beta readers if you’re up for this route, you can also find them on organized sites such as Wattpad and Scribofile.
Hiring an editor: Depending on how thorough of an edit you want, you can hire an editor for anywhere from $15 an hour to $4,000 for your whole manuscript. $15 an hour is going to get you a speed-read edit, so if that’s all you can afford, you’re probably better off just going with beta readers or a writing buddy instead. Though that’s not to say the $4,000 option is worthwhile either, since that usually gets you a read-through with grammatical and spelling corrections, plus a summarized edit. Try going for something on the cheaper side of the middle instead ($25-$35 an hour). And regardless, make sure to ask your editor what you’re going to get out of that investment in return.
One quick note about that last statement: When I say to make sure you know what you’re getting out of an edit, what I mean is to ask lots of questions.
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Will they be using track changes? Will they be adding in comments? Will they be looking for plot pitfalls as well as spelling and grammar? Are they going to look line by line, or are they simply critiquing the big picture?
For example, when I edit someone’s book manuscript, I take a holistic approach. That means I’m looking to make sure the dialogue is convincing, that details mesh together, characters are believable and the story flows well from paragraph to paragraph. So my clients get a thorough edit from start to finish, complete with a complimentary summary that highlights areas they’ve already sold me on as well as spots that need improvement.
Whatever editor you go with though, make sure you feel comfortable with them before you sign on. Don’t let them pressure you at any point.
And always keep in mind that you really do have what it takes to write a book. The rest is just practice.
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Where Can You Reach Jeannette DiLouie?
Jeannette DiLouie is the published author of 10 books and counting, and the Chief Executive Editor of Innovative Editing, a full-service editorial business with a special focus on authors and authors-in-the-making. You can find her writing insights and guidance at www.InnovativeEditing.com, and her books on Amazon.com.
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It’s hard to believe it but Polished Publishing Group (PPG) is celebrating 10 years in business. Much has changed since my inaugural Welcome to My Blog! post on November 22, 2009.
10 Years in Business PPG!
Today’s website and blog look very different from what I started with 10 years ago. Back then, the theme colours were slate blue and grey as you can see in this video I produced for one of PPG’s first authors, Cheryl Bernard: Welcome to Polished Publishing Group (PPG). I’d also created the PPG Writers’ Forum and an online store to sell PPG books through. But neither of them took off, so I had to let them go a few years ago. C’est la vie!
Welcome to My Blog: 10 Years in Business
Through the years, I also tried to generate more interest in this blog—this book publishing company as a whole—by creating contests. You Could Win $100,000 in 2012! and You Could Win a Free Publishing Package in 2013! are two early examples. These well-intentioned ideas were intended to generate more social media likes and blog subscribers for PPG. But neither of them made any kind of grand splash in the publishing world. C’est la vie!
What I’ve learned over these past 10 years is that there is no substitute for dedicated work and continued focus. There is no secret formula to “hack your way to success” quickly and effortlessly. Do you want to be a successful writer? Then you must write. Daily. Do you want to be an author? Then you have to push past your fears of sharing the things you’ve written with others. And publish it once and for all.
You need to have patience through all the seasons in order to grow your Author’s Money Tree strong and healthy. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned for sure over these last 10 years: it’s possible!
10 Years in Business PPG!
Times are changing, and PPG is changing with them. Watch for our new logo and brand refresh over the next couple of weeks. We’re also updating our entire service offering to support a broader range of authors with everything from writing and publishing to sales, marketing, publicity, printing, and distribution.
Some of those changes are already evident in our Online Courses for Authors [Learn from Home]. PPG also wants to help authors everywhere to improve their ranking and profitability on ecommerce sites like Amazon…
My OVERALL Amazon Author Ranking is steadily increasing by following this advice!
Want to sell more books? Follow the advice of authors like Timothy Ellis who are selling 3,000+ books per month: “It’s not enough to write a good book. It needs to be visible, it needs to be findable, it needs to attract the eye, and suck the reader inside. … It only takes 1 book to get the ball rolling, but you will never know which book it is until it happens.”
My BUSINESS AND MONEY KINDLE Amazon Author Ranking is steadily increasing by following this advice!
Visibility comes with your ranking online. Which book will push my personal ranking over the limit to were I’m consistently listed in the Amazon Best Sellers? Time will tell … and I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
But my own progress is only half my interest. I want to help YOU succeed with your books, too. So, stay tuned for even more great resources on the Polished Publishing Group website. Here’s to even more progress and success over the next 10 years! For all of us!
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Let’s talk about how Timothy Ellis consistently sells 3000+ books per month. Here’s the success formula he shared with me in May of 2017. You can use it, too.
Timothy Ellis
[Timothy Ellis] Thank you Kim for inviting me to your Blog. I’m delighted to be able to talk about publishing novels, and what I’ve found works for me. I find myself answering a lot of author related questions on Quora these days, and the following represents a lot of merged answers. I hope some of this is helpful.
[Kim Staflund] How many books have you published? What genre are they?
[TE] I started writing in 2006, with a spiritual how to heal using meditation book, followed by a how to do Feng Shui book. Both were rejected by traditional publishers, but I must admit, I didn’t try very hard.
These were followed by 2 game handbooks for a PC space combat simulator style game. I’d been writing game guides for several years, before I suggested all the guides by everyone be put together into a handbook. The answer came back, your idea, you do it, so I did. It had 5 versions in pdf format over as many years, and now has 2 Kindle editions.
Once a long running thread on a spiritual forum vanished in a clean-up, I turned it into 8 Wisdom of the Ages books, based on questions and answers in the thread. The last three deal with Karma, Indigo’s, and Ascension, and include a lot of articles I’d been writing over the years, all brought together in one place.
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I was late to adapting to Kindle, somewhat accidently discovering how good it was to read in that format. Once I accepted it, I used the first of the game Handbooks to test how to publish this way, followed it with the spiritual and Feng Shui book, and then the 8 Wisdom of the Ages books. This was in 2014.
At this point, with practically no sales of anything but an occasional handbook, I started writing fiction novels. Even now, if I sell more than 20 non-fiction books a month, I’m doing well. So currently the count goes like this, if you break it down by genres.
1 Feng Shui.
11 Spiritual, including one 5 volume omnibus.
18 Space Opera Science Fiction books, which includes 14 novels, 1 novella, 1 Christmas story,1 Companion book, and 1 short story which was included in one of the novels a year after I wrote it, but is still available on its own.
2 Omnibus editions, covering 6 books.
2 PC Game Handbooks.
So a total of 34 books.
Technically I have 4 series now. The Wisdom of the Ages in the spiritual non-fiction genre, the X3 Handbook in the PC Games genre, and The Hunter Legacy and A.I. Destiny series in Space Opera.
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The interesting thing is, only the 2 Handbooks do not have a spiritual connection. So while Space Opera is my main thing these days, I am still a spiritual author, mixing genres quite successfully.
The Space Opera is by far my best sellers. But because I chose to mix spiritual into Space Opera through a spiritual main character, several of my novels link back to a spiritual book, and there is a small feed of sales as a result.
[KS] What do you do in terms of promotion for your books?
[TE] The single best way of promoting any book is to release another book.
It’s not enough to write a good book. It needs to be visible, it needs to be findable, it needs to attract the eye, and suck the reader inside.
Visibility comes with rank. I can only talk about Amazon’s ranking system, and it is very cut-throat. The single most important thing is release day debut rank. You achieve this with a mailing list and social media presence, where you already hyped up your readers to expect the new book in some time frame, usually short.
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The more people who buy the book on day 1, and the more people who download it to read using Kindle Unlimited, (remember, I’m only talking Amazon here), the higher the book debuts in the ranking system.
The book gets a rank in the paid store in a number of places. The whole book store, the Kindle store, the main genre, and the sub-categories of that genre. For a lot of genres, the sub-categories happen because of the keywords you use, and especially for Sci-Fi, there are specific words which put you in specific sub-categories.
The better your rank in all of these, the more visible the book is. How well all your books are doing determines your author rank. Getting your author rank high in a major category makes you very visible, but it’s quite difficult to do.
After the debut, ranks begin to slide. About a week later, Amazon sends out emails to your followers, and this can spike you up again. But at about 20 days, you start being cycled downwards unless you have promotions which can hold your sales up. At 30 days you fall off the new releases lists. By 60 days, your book is gone into Neverland.
The best strategy is to release a new book, before the 60 day abyss comes along. It used to be 90 days, and this is still a major accelerant into the abyss when you get there.
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For me, with a main series of 13 books with 3 extra books, and now into a spin off series, each time I release a new book, I get a small back flow to the first book in the first series, as people go looking for what else I’ve written. Some of those continue on to book 2, and a slightly diminishing percent continue on through the whole series. So each new book I release, keeps a flow of people starting my first series, and as long as I keep releasing in timely fashion, all of my novels sell.
And this is how you make a living, once you have a series people like. With each book, your mailing list gets bigger, your social media presence is bigger, and you have a solid group of fans to buy each book on day 1. The visibility brings your book before new people, and these feed back into your older books. With enough visibility, each book doesn’t have to perform all that well to give you a decent income.
Visibility isn’t enough though. Once it’s been seen, your cover has to attract the eye, so it must be good looking, and be what the genre expects it to look like. With the eye drawn, the blurb has to entice the reader into the sample.
Bad covers and bad blurbs are where most people fail. Too many blurbs give backstory and a synopsis, which I recommend are never used. Backstory should be in the story. A synopsis always gives away too much, and once I’ve read one, I have no need to read the book. Blurbs should be about who the main character is, what their challenge is about, and what the stakes are, put together in a way which entices the reader into the first chapter of the book.
The sample is the first 10% of your book, and it is freely available both online and as a download. The object of the exercise is to make sure a reader gets to the end of it immediately wanting to know what happens next. But too many books start with backstory and info dumps, and a bored reader doesn’t finish the sample. The sample must also be formatted correctly, with no spelling mistakes, bad grammar, or typos. A common mistake is releasing a book which needed an editor or proof-reader, or both, and didn’t get either. Such things bounce people out of a story, and stop them buying.
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So the art of not needing promotion is to write stories people want to read, and present them to the highest standard you can, in a time frame where you don’t lose the momentum of the previous book.
The days of 1 book a year are well and truly gone. On Kindle, although it varies by genre, more than 6 weeks between the release of say 75,000 word (avg.) books means you lose the momentum of the previous book. At 3 months, you need to jump start things again.
When you can’t release inside the 3 month expectation, keeping a steady income happening requires external promotion. Of these, the freebie Bookbub ad is by far the best in terms of results, but also the hardest to get, since Bookbub are very limited in the number of places on their emails, have hundreds of books for each slot to choose from, and are very picky about the books they put on them.
Most of the main promotion sites are for free or 99c books, which means you get almost no return on downloads of your promoted book. Which is where the back catalogue of your work comes into its own, and where writing series really helps. You offer your first in series for free, and make your money from it as people read down the series. It’s when you have few books to your name, or they are all stand alone, that the freebie promotion sites are ineffective for anything except getting your name out there.
I’ve been submitting to Bookbub for 2 years now, and am yet to be accepted. This is normal and should be expected. Since my third novel took off, I’ve only had to use a freebie service once, when I was over 3 months between releases, and this worked well enough to keep me going until the next book was released. But all the same, it was my worst month since that first take off month.
The bottom line here is, you either choose to write enough to release within a 3 month period, or you promote. The first costs time, the second costs money. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to write enough to release regularly, and only needed to promote once.
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Bonus tip: The authors who release a new novel of a decent size every 4 weeks, never lose their momentum, and these authors make a decent income. It only takes 1 book to get the ball rolling, but you will never know which book it is until it happens. Once it does, a whole heap of things kick in to boost you up, and as long as you keep releasing, you can stay there and make a living from writing.
[KS] You’ve indicated you consider “3000 sales per month is a bad month” for you. This is phenomenal. How are you achieving this level of sales?
[TE] My first novel series was originally supposed to be 6 books. I started book 1 to get it out of my head. It took the longest to write, nearly 14 months, because of health issues, and the need to learn how to change from writing fan fiction and how-to books, into a novel writer. A lot of this was how to proofread and edit to a much higher standard, and initially being taught how by someone who used a great deal of red ink. It is worth the frustration of all that red to learn how to edit effectively yourself.
After release of book 1, I kept writing book 2. And the same with book 3. Book 1 was attracting maybe a sale every couple of days, with book 2 it became a sale most days, and occasionally two.
With book 3, I suddenly found the story wasn’t anywhere near finished, had taken on a life of its own, and 1 book turned into its own trilogy. So I was already well into book 4 before I completed editing of 3. And when released, 3 took off with 16 sales on day 1, much to my total amazement. This was enough, even without a mailing list at that time, to boost me into visibility range. Book 3 also had a much better opening hook, a substantially better cover, and people were reading it without having read the first 2. Then they went back to them, and between the sales of all 3, an upward spiral began.
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Now the key point here is book 2 was released about 5 weeks after book 1, and book 3 was about 4 weeks later. Book 4 was another 4 odd weeks after, and continued the momentum, with book 5 being 5 weeks later. So each one built on the previous one. Book 6 broke the momentum as I had a bad health period, and so it was released at 7 weeks, and was only a novella.
Book 7 was 5 weeks later, and hit the beginning of the 2015 Christmas book buying season, and I managed to get an author rank of 14 in Science fiction. It only lasted a few days, but this is the visibility you really need to do well. Being in the top 20 of a major category is where you have to be to do really well. I’ve never managed it since, but this was what gave me the biggest boost.
The series went for 13 books instead of 6, with diminishing returns after 9, indicating 9 books in a serial type of series is as far as you should go. But I’d locked myself into a time line by the time I reached book 10, and couldn’t stop.
I then began a spin off series, using the most loved secondary character as the main character, in a completely new setting, but directly following along from the first series. I’m finding the new series is feeding people back into the original series, even though it’s been designed to be read stand alone.
So at the moment, I’m getting the benefit of a new release in a second series, which is feeding back into the old series enough readers so all my books are selling consistently at a rate where the accumulation boosts me past the 3000 a month mark.
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I should also point out this 3000 a month includes Kindle Unlimited full reads. Amazon’s subscription service pays less than a sale, but in money terms, it generates more income than sales do. This has dynamically changed the eBook market place, and it works for some authors and not for others. It certainly works for me, and early on I had reader feedback they wanted my books in KU from minute 1. What this does for me is day 1 is almost all sales from my mailing list, Facebook Group and Facebook Page, and day 2 is mainly made up of the KU reads from day 1 appearing on the day 2 report.
There are 3 parts to a monthly income. The release that month, the flow-back from that release and its subsequent ripple down the back catalogue, and the base sales and reads from each book’s own rank and visibility sending people to book 1. From book 1, people can directly find all my books in order, from the links in the back-matter of each book, where I put both cover thumbnails, and the direct links. The months where I’ve had 3000 or less sales/reads, were when I didn’t release a new book in the previous 2 months, and was in freefall into the abyss.
The most important thing for sales on day 1 is the mailing list, and the link to it should be in the back of every book. You also put the links to your Facebook Page and Group if you have them, from which your fans will buy on day 1, sometimes before you even know the book is live, given you announced the upload as soon as it’s done. You also include links to your Amazon AuthorCentral page, where people can follow you, which gives you a boost a week after launch. You should also include your Goodreads page, and Bookbub page. Each of these helps people find your book rapidly after release.
[KS] What advice do you have for the other authors who aren’t selling anything right now?
[TE] Write. Write more. Write faster. Write more often. Keep writing.
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Making a living from writing novels requires you treat it like a job. You allocate a time each day to write, you write for a set amount of time, and nothing interrupts you. It becomes a habit, and the people around you learn to leave you alone.
How much you write every day is less important, but it determines how much momentum you can keep in the rankings.
The biggest comment people make is how long it takes to write a novel, with the assumption it has to take a year for a decent book. But it doesn’t have to take very long, if you look at it on a constant daily basis.
3000 words a day for 30 days writes a 90,000 word novel in a month. Plus editing and it can be released in 6 weeks.
2000 words a day for 40 days writes an 80,000 word novel inside 6 weeks, and you might get it out in 7, depending on its editing needs.
2000 words a day for 30 days writes a 60,000 word novel in a month, and gets it out under 6 weeks.
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1000 words a day takes 2 months to write a reasonable length novel, and you can get it out in 3 months before you fall off the 90 day cliff.
How long it takes you to write 1000 words is a different thing, and everyone is different. But if you do it daily, you can release a novel on a regular 3 month basis. A novel is 50,000 words or more, and while in some genres this is way too short, in others this a good length. Know your genre and its expectation. But also try to be consistent with book length so your fans build an expectation you can deliver.
What matters the most is writing something every day. Establish the habit, and try really hard not to break it. The habit will keep you going, when other things try to put you off. The habit only needs to be what you can do consistently. Even 100 words a day will write a book in a year. A small book, but still a book.
One thing I keep writing about on Quora is motivation. Anyone who goes into writing novels thinking they will write the next best-seller straight off, is delusional. One of the most often asked questions on Quora in the books topic is a variation on how do you write a best seller. You don’t! You write a book, get it out there, and a whole heap of hard work, circumstances and luck, might make it one. But so many things have to happen exactly right for this to occur, and most of the time, it only takes one thing wrong to make it certain it won’t. It can be the best book ever written, but just one wrong thing will doom it to the abyss. Unfortunately though, those who think their book is the best ever, are generally blind to reality. Sorry to be blunt. Blind and delusional are very common these days. Do yourself a favour, and don’t be. The advice you will need is out there, seek it.
I’ve yet to write a best seller. I’ve had books below 500 in the Kindle store a couple of times, and I usually debut below 1500. This is Woohoo territory, but it doesn’t make a best seller. To have a best seller on debut requires 1000’s of sales on day 1, and no drop off in the weeks following. It means debuting below 100, and keeping on going down. Once you get below 500 in the Kindle store, the sales curve to go lower is almost exponential. You can’t do this on a first book without having the movie first or pumping in serious money. And yet, this expectation is very common. Do yourself a favour, and don’t even think about it.
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It’s important to go into writing with the right attitude. You are writing the book because you love writing, you need to get the idea out of your head, and your characters are driving you to tell their story. You are writing a story in the hope someone will read it and like it, but the writing is the important part. Write it, edit it and proofread it as best you can, get as good a cover as you can, write an enticing blurb, and get it out there. Then forget it, and go on with the next one.
The authors who give up are the ones with unreasonable expectations. Any given book not only might not sell, but probably won’t. So give it the best launch you can, and then forget it. Even if this one does the rocket, you still need to finish the next book.
Pay attention to what the successful books in your genre are doing. That means reading them. It means looking at which sub-categories they are in, why they are there, what the cover looks like, how the blurb reads, and how they convert a sample into a buy. There is no real competition in eBooks. The competition for rank and visibility is major, but the average reader finishes a book inside 2 days and spends the next 30 to 45 days waiting for your next book, by reading someone else’s. Some people read multiple books a week, all in the same genre. So there is plenty of room for you, as long as you write what people want to read. And being the number one also-bought on an author doing better than you, is really helpful to sales, and you achieve this because your readers read everyone else. So your main competition is also your best friend, especially if they do better than you, but all your readers read them too. The flow-back from your book on the first page of another author’s performing book’s also-boughts, can be exactly what you need to boost your book.
In some genres, it’s common to write in trilogies, long serials, or a series of stand-alones with the same characters. Series are great because once any book in it takes off, the series itself will take off. And this is what you want. Any one book which converts into series sales, gets you the momentum to make a living. The trouble is, you never know which book it will be.
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My recommendation is to write in trilogies. Leave the door open for sequel trilogies, and spin offs, but see how it’s received at the end of the first one. Build a universe, and start filling it. So first trilogy is world building around a story. The spin off extends it with new characters. The sequel extends the original and maybe merges in the spin off. When you get to 9 books in the same universe, assuming the books are liked, you should have a fan base. If you use a Facebook Group to talk to them, they will tell you which way to go next.
If the first trilogy doesn’t work, start work on something different. But here’s the thing: Always complete your trilogy. Nothing annoys readers more than a trilogy which isn’t finished. In fact, a lot of people won’t start reading a trilogy until book 3 is out, just to make sure it is completed. I found a lot of people didn’t read my 13-parter until it too was complete. Breaking your covenant with your readers is a sure fire way of losing a reader forever, and by announcing this is book 1 of xyz series, you are making a covenant with your readers to finish it. So make sure you do.
A trilogy which doesn’t sell is not a waste of time. It’s part of your back catalogue. This converts to dollars when you finally have a book take off.
If you can, and you take longer to write than 6 weeks a book, hold off releasing book 1 until book 3 is in editing, and then release all 3, 30 days apart. This gives you the most momentum. On book 1, you include the series list for the other 2, noting they are forthcoming. You update each book as you release the next.
If the first series isn’t successful, as I said, it’s now part of your back catalogue. Get on with the next. And the next. And the next. When you finally get the surprise of your life when one book takes off, people will go back and look to see what else you wrote. And it’s how the whole catalogue performs rather than any single book, which defines income. What do trad publishers do when a new author hits the best seller list? They relook at their last decades’ writing, groom it, and then release it while the next book is being written. In eBooks, they are already out there, just waiting for the jump start. Your next book might be it.
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The last big thing to talk about is sample conversion. You have a good cover, an enticing blurb, the reader opens your sample, and what? When the reader reaches the end of the sample, they should immediately click on the book and buy it. But will they? This depends on you, and how you write the front end. The best way to do it is genre specific, and I can only talk about Space Opera. In Space Opera, you need a big hook. Your words need to reach out of the book, grab the reader by the throat, and drag them inside their own reader device. Way too many books in Sci-fi and Space Opera start with back-story, world building, and boring conversations. Somewhere around chapter 5, some action happens. WRONG! You lost your reader already, and didn’t get the sale.
If you have action, start with it in the first paragraph, and keep writing it until it’s over. Hit the reader in the face, and then keep on hitting them. Somewhere around chapter 3 or 5, you can slow down, go back, and show the reader how you got there, and start filling in details. But up the front end of the book, never explain anything. Drop the reader into the action, and carry it to its conclusion.
There are some very successful exceptions to this, but the main reason is two words. Bookbub ad. Forget it. You’re not going to get one as a new author or so far unknown author, so let’s get the reader hooked on the first page, and simply don’t let go. Yes the backstory is important, the world building is important, the info dumps are important, but they are no use if the reader gives up on page 1, or is bored at the end of the first chapter. By the time they end the sample, you want them invested in knowing what happens next, to the point they click the buy button without thought. Only the really established authors with very large mailing lists can ignore this.
Learning the craft of writing novels isn’t easy, but there is a lot of help out there. There are writer forums and groups, where it’s safe to ask questions. You won’t always like the answers, or the way they get delivered. But the people who do well, learn the lessons the successful authors are happy to teach. Sad to say, the ego driven people who ignore all the advice available, are the ones who crash and burn, then give up. So find a place you like, read everything posted there, and start asking intelligent questions. Someone will give you something which works.
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Bottom line on being a writer though, is to keep writing, and keep releasing. You can only get better with each new book, and at some point, something has to work.
There is no waste in not selling now. Stephen King’s worst books were the ones he wrote early on before his first trad published book was accepted, which all were released later on, and because he now had a name, they still sold well.
You are building a catalogue, and one day, it will pay off.
Stay positive, and keep writing.
As Douglas Adams once said on a totally different subject, “Go to it, good luck.”
Timothy Ellis ranks (paid store), as at writing time (which was May 17, 2017, on the original guest post):
1853 in the Amazon Book store.
1023 in the Kindle store.
180 in Science Fiction and Fantasy.
79 in Science Fiction.
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Selling books online has never been easier—even for those of you storing boxes of paperbacks/hardcovers in your garages. You can move those books out once and for all. Order fulfillment and shipping is also easier now thanks to Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA).
Selling books online is made easier with Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA)
On this blog, I often discuss ways you can sell more books through strategic blogging and digital publishing. But where does that leave those of you who have already printed a few hundred books that are collecting dust in boxes in your garage?
Selling Books Online is Not Limited to Digital Books
I had coffee with an aspiring author just last week. We were discussing the most effective ways for him to sell his non-fiction idea when he mentioned his father is a poet. Years ago, his father had self-published a poetry collection the old-fashioned way—by printing a few hundred copies of it at a local print shop. He’d held one or two bookstore signings after that and sold 40 or 50 copies to local supporters.
But he was surprised to learn that “bricks and mortar” booksellers and libraries will only purchase books through established distributors. They simply won’t deal with individual authors on anything more than a per-event consignment basis. So, like many others, he found himself stuck with several boxes of books, unable to sell them. Nobody had told him it would be this difficult using the traditional book distribution system.
Today’s Book Distribution System Makes Life Easier for Indies
Today, all you need is a website address to direct traffic to and people everywhere can find you. An Amazon ecommerce webpage like this one is perfect. Here, you can write an enticing book description and upload a cover image to promote your title. Then you can simply drive traffic to that webpage from all over your province/country—never mind your local community. And you can rely on Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) to house and ship those books for you.
But, like anything else, it’s not a simple “set it and forget it” type of system. You can’t just list the book and walk away. It is still necessary to actively drive traffic to that webpage, and strategic blogging is the easiest and most cost-effective way to do it.
You might consider syndicating this content on your own blog. If you do, make sure to attribute the original source so neither of us gets dinged on the SEO front. You can do that by including this line at the bottom of the article: This content first appeared on the PPG Publisher’s Blog and has been republished here with permission.
When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]
As America’s National Bullying Prevention Month comes to a close, I find myself wondering why a recent Forbes article reports that workplace bullying is on the rise. With all the knowledge we now have about the effects of bullying on people’s mental health, and all the resources at our disposal to effectively deal with it, how can this be? Perhaps, we have yet to clearly define one very important detail: when is it business and when is it bullying?
You might think bullying is something that only children have to worry about. And with all the media attention, you might even think it’s a behavior that has waned. But let’s look at the alarming statistics. An older 2008 poll on workplace bullying found that 75% of employees reported being affected as either a target or witness. And a new 2019 Monster.com survey out this month found that nearly 94% out of 2081 employees said they had been bullied in the workplace. That’s a huge increase (19%) in the last eleven years. (Forbes, Bryan Robinson, October 2019)
Robinson encourages people to speak up and act immediately. He even lists which actions to take to protect oneself and others. But what if a corporation’s success ideology inadvertently supports bullying behaviours? Then those actions will fall on deaf ears time and again, won’t they?
When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]
When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]
Interviews with Dr. Robert (Bob) Hare and Dr. Paul Babiak, who co-authored Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, provide some serious food for thought. These gentlemen estimate that from one to two percent of the general population is psychopathic in nature. Alarmingly, they find an even higher population of psychopathy within corporate environments:
“And what we find, surprisingly, was that there was a rate of 3.9% in that population of individuals that had scored high enough on the psychopathy checklist that they had hit the mark for being assessed as a psychopath.” (CBC Docs, Dr. Paul Babiak, September 2018)
What is this psychopathy checklist that Paul Babiak speaks of? It was created by his Canadian co-author, Bob Hare—a forensic psychologist touted as being “the godfather of psychopathy” by courts and law enforcement agencies the world over. Both Hare and Babiak consider psychopaths to be society’s most dangerous individuals. This is not only because they behave like predators at the top of the food chain. It is also because they are clever chameleons who can appear normal to the rest of us. With their severe emotional detachment to anything coupled with a lack of remorse, it is easy to see how these pathological liars can infect a workplace.
Did Bank Executives Use the Psychopathy Checklist to Recruit Employees?
Bullying is traumatic. When a trauma happens in your personal life, people rally around you to help you heal. Unfortunately, more often than not, when it happens in a corporate environment, you’re expected to just get over it and get on with it. You can clearly see this mentality in a 2018 CBC Go Public article about banking employees who complained to the media about chronic bullying in their workplaces. After completing an investigation of the bullying allegations, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) deputy commissioner, Brigitte Goulard, had this to say:
According to Clive Boddy, a Professor of Leadership & Organizational Behaviour, this attitude is common within the financial sector. In fact, some bank executives took it a frightening step further a while back.
When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]
“Modern business is a perfect environment for [psychopaths] because it enables them to achieve the desires that they want in terms of money, in terms of controlling other people, in terms of gaining power and prestige, of course.” British professor and author, Clive Boddy, believes psychopathic behaviour was largely responsible for the global financial crisis. … Boddy says investment deals were so complex, even the brokers didn’t understand them. “You ask yourself: what kind of people would sell a product that they don’t understand and can’t properly price? You’d have to be without conscience—wouldn’t you?—to sell that kind of thing.”
…And Clive Boddy saw it all coming. A few years before the financial collapse, he began hearing that some bank executives went so far as to use Bob Hare’s psychopath checklist to recruit employees. “Presumably, that was because they thought those new employees would be cutthroat and ruthless towards their competitors. The danger, of course, is that they are cutthroat and ruthless towards the bank that employs them, as well. It’s like saying criminals are good at guarding Fort Knox, guarding the gold, guarding the crown jewels. The outcome would be inevitable. The gold would go missing. The jewels would be stolen. … If the system has been corrupted by the presence of corporate psychopaths, then the best thing to do is to get those people out of there rather than hope that the problem will go away on its own. Because it won’t.” (CBC Docs, Clive Boddy, September 2018)
Clearly, we all need to take a pause and rethink our society’s success ideology. When is it business and when is it bullying? And who exactly should be calling those shots in the workplace?
Workplace Bullying Can Affect the Bottom Line
For those who value money and power above all else—who are not swayed by the plight of others who are bullied in the workplace—I will appeal to your thinking from a different angle. When you place economy ahead of integrity, that economy will only sustain itself for so long. Employees and the public will begin to see through the deception. They’ll start complaining. First in small numbers. Then those numbers will grow larger and larger until a domino effect takes place that ultimately causes a recession … possibly even another stock market crash.
You need to care for the mental and physical health of your people first. Then they will take care of you.
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So, if you haven’t done so, get started building a social media presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social media or create your own blog and build up your following . Also, look for other ways to be in a position to help market your book. Your platform will be one of the most important elements of your non-fiction book, if not the most important element.
The resulting mess is time-consuming to clean up, to say the least.
Fortunately for us, there are a number of great ways to grow, mainly by seeking out other people’s opinions and advice. This could be by:
These were followed by 2 game handbooks for a PC space combat simulator style game. I’d been writing game guides for several years, before I suggested all the guides by everyone be put together into a handbook. The answer came back, your idea, you do it, so I did. It had 5 versions in pdf format over as many years, and now has 2 Kindle editions.
So a total of 34 books.
The Space Opera is by far my best sellers. But because I chose to mix spiritual into Space Opera through a spiritual main character, several of my novels link back to a spiritual book, and there is a small feed of sales as a result.
And this is how you make a living, once you have a series people like. With each book, your mailing list gets bigger, your social media presence is bigger, and you have a solid group of fans to buy each book on day 1. The visibility brings your book before new people, and these feed back into your older books. With enough visibility, each book doesn’t have to perform all that well to give you a decent income.
I’ve been submitting to Bookbub for 2 years now, and am yet to be accepted. This is normal and should be expected. Since my third novel took off, I’ve only had to use a freebie service once, when I was over 3 months between releases, and this worked well enough to keep me going until the next book was released. But all the same, it was my worst month since that first take off month.
Bonus tip: The authors who release a new novel of a decent size every 4 weeks, never lose their momentum, and these authors make a decent income. It only takes 1 book to get the ball rolling, but you will never know which book it is until it happens. Once it does, a whole heap of things kick in to boost you up, and as long as you keep releasing, you can stay there and make a living from writing.
After release of book 1, I kept writing book 2. And the same with book 3. Book 1 was attracting maybe a sale every couple of days, with book 2 it became a sale most days, and occasionally two.
I then began a spin off series, using the most loved secondary character as the main character, in a completely new setting, but directly following along from the first series. I’m finding the new series is feeding people back into the original series, even though it’s been designed to be read stand alone.
The most important thing for sales on day 1 is the mailing list, and the link to it should be in the back of every book. You also put the links to your Facebook Page and Group if you have them, from which your fans will buy on day 1, sometimes before you even know the book is live, given you announced the upload as soon as it’s done. You also include links to your Amazon AuthorCentral page, where people can follow you, which gives you a boost a week after launch. You should also include your Goodreads page, and Bookbub page. Each of these helps people find your book rapidly after release.
The biggest comment people make is how long it takes to write a novel, with the assumption it has to take a year for a decent book. But it doesn’t have to take very long, if you look at it on a constant daily basis.
What matters the most is writing something every day. Establish the habit, and try really hard not to break it. The habit will keep you going, when other things try to put you off. The habit only needs to be what you can do consistently. Even 100 words a day will write a book in a year. A small book, but still a book.
It’s important to go into writing with the right attitude. You are writing the book because you love writing, you need to get the idea out of your head, and your characters are driving you to tell their story. You are writing a story in the hope someone will read it and like it, but the writing is the important part. Write it, edit it and proofread it as best you can, get as good a cover as you can, write an enticing blurb, and get it out there. Then forget it, and go on with the next one.
My recommendation is to write in trilogies. Leave the door open for sequel trilogies, and spin offs, but see how it’s received at the end of the first one. Build a universe, and start filling it. So first trilogy is world building around a story. The spin off extends it with new characters. The sequel extends the original and maybe merges in the spin off. When you get to 9 books in the same universe, assuming the books are liked, you should have a fan base. If you use a Facebook Group to talk to them, they will tell you which way to go next.
![When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]](https://polishedpublishinggroup.com/wp-content/uploads/When-is-it-Business-and-When-is-it-Bullying-Shutterstock_1519747943.jpg "When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]")
![When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]](https://polishedpublishinggroup.com/wp-content/uploads/When-is-it-Business-and-When-is-it-Bullying-Snakes-in-Suits-Shutterstock_634455101.jpg "When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]")
![When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]](https://polishedpublishinggroup.com/wp-content/uploads/When-is-it-Business-and-When-is-it-Bullying-Snakes-in-Suits-shutterstock_1523258309.jpg "When is it Business and When is it Bullying? [Snakes in Suits]")