Most people are quite happy to throw their spare cash wantonly on whatever whim they feel like, be it clothes, beers, cigarettes, eating out, entertainment ... yet for some reason, when it comes to self-publishing, suddenly people "can't afford" editing, proofreading, decent cover design, formatting ... can't afford to pay to advertise, can't afford to do pretty much anything, in other words.
From reading many writers forums you'd be forgiven for believing that all self-published writers are poverty-stricken, bridge dwellers who have to make daily decisions between which they need most, coffee or cigarettes.
Of course some might be one step away from the dole queue, but most aren't. Most have exactly the same amount of disposable income as anyone else, but when it comes to putting money into their books there seems to be an unnatural aversion to it.
Why?
Perhaps because it is possible to self-publish for free, many writers think that spending money on it is money wasted. Perhaps they don't feel their work is deserving of it. Or perhaps, like I did when I started out, they feel that they don't need to. They think they're good enough to carry it all by themselves.
A few days ago I got this review -
Not a bad story, shame about lack of a definitive ending to allow the sequals.
Does need a bit of proofing with a few words missing (but you can tell what is implied) and a few plurals missing their S.
Don't get me started on the comment - there's no more a cliffhanger in that book than there is in Star Wars, and I've never seen anyone complain about that. Nor that the review was posted by an indie author who managed to spell the world "sequel" wrong, but whatever. What's important is that if you cut corners in the beginning it will come back to haunt you.
I'm an English teacher by profession. I'm halfway through a MSc in Linguistics. I felt I could catch anything, felt I didn't need anyone to help me.
Wrong.
Tube Riders, the book in question, has since had a paid professional edit and I'm quite confident there are none of the errors the reviewer talks about. However, since I was stupid enough to go the Amazon KDP Select free promos route for a while (against my better judgement and something that, for novels at least, I now regret) there are some 8000 copies of Tube Riders out there in various states of repair.
Freebie hunters are notorious for not reading the books they horde, but at any point such a review could jump up and bite me. And while genuine readers rarely mention actually textual errors, indie author "reviewers", the bane of new writers everywhere, take an almost sadistic pride in pointing out the errors of their fellow writers.
It doesn't matter that Tube Riders is now in good shape. That review is up there and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm not about to start adding "newly corrected version" at the top of my book listings page because there's nothing that screams "amateur!" louder.
However, if I'd been wise enough not to trust myself in the first place and got a paid edit of Tube Riders done before I first published it, I wouldn't be in this position.
So, think about it before you put your masterpiece out into the world for public criticism. You don't have to pay a fortune - the edit for Tube Riders cost me about $200 - but getting a professional pair of eyes to look over it can make all the difference. I might never know how many readers have been turned off by reading such reviews about Tube Riders, but I do know is that it would have been easy to avoid getting those reviews in the first place.
Don't cut corners.
Chris Ward
July 5th 2013
Friday, 5 July 2013
Sunday, 23 June 2013
How to set up a Facebook author page
It is absolutely essential for all indie authors to have some kind of an online media presence. The easiest place to start, of course, is Facebook. If you're like me, pretty much everyone you know will have a Facebook page, and it is on Facebook that you'll be able to find a lot of new fans. It's also a good, user-friendly place for them to find and interact with you.
However, unless your current Facebook friends have the patience of saints (my don't - drunken confessions have informed me that I'm on quite a few blocked lists ...!) then you'll want to set up a separate page for your author name, your series, or even a major character. While your friends and family might be a good place to start in the hunt for fans and sales, they'll quickly get bored of hearing about it ... All. The. Time. Creating a separate Facebook page allows real fans to come to you without you resorting to annoying those close to you with endless posts about your books.
And it's easy as pie to do. Here I'll demonstrate while setting up a Facebook page for my latest alter-ego, village cricket short story writer, Michael White.
First of all, log in to Facebook and then go to this link to select the type of page you want to set up.
You can choose whatever type you want but for an author it's probably best to go with public figure.
Click on Choose a Category and you'll see Author in the drop down menu.
Now, give your page a name (I went with the wonderfully clunky Michael White Cricket Fiction Writer, check the terms box and then click Get Started.
Next you come to the screen below which asks for a few details.
Here you also have the option to add a external blog, website or Twitter account if you have one. For the question at the bottom I check "no" because Michael White is a pen name. I think this box is for fan sites for celebrities, but if you are the person in question then it's perfectly okay to check "yes".
When you're done, click Save Info.
You'll come to this page.
You can choose whether to add a profile picture now or later. I added a stock photo of a cricket pitch which I bought for the covers of Michael White's short stories. You can change your profile pic anytime, though. When you're done, click Save Photo or Skip to go to the next page.
The next screen gives you the option to choose the Facebook address for your page. This is the link you can use in your books to send people to your Facebook page.
I went with the one they suggested. When you're happy with it, click Set Address.
You'll be taken to your completed page.
Facebook will automatically highlight the Like button so you can be the first person to like your page, and then the area where you can invite your friends to like it.
You're finished! Now all you have to do is add stuff to your page, share it to get Likes and start posting. If you're ready for something a little more complicated, you can set up an Amazon Store for your books in the toolbar. Click here for my guide to doing it.
See, told you it was easy. Enjoy!
Any questions or comments are welcome in the comments section below. And if anyone wants to give Michael White's brand new page some love, here's the link.
Chris Ward
June 23rd 2013
However, unless your current Facebook friends have the patience of saints (my don't - drunken confessions have informed me that I'm on quite a few blocked lists ...!) then you'll want to set up a separate page for your author name, your series, or even a major character. While your friends and family might be a good place to start in the hunt for fans and sales, they'll quickly get bored of hearing about it ... All. The. Time. Creating a separate Facebook page allows real fans to come to you without you resorting to annoying those close to you with endless posts about your books.
And it's easy as pie to do. Here I'll demonstrate while setting up a Facebook page for my latest alter-ego, village cricket short story writer, Michael White.
First of all, log in to Facebook and then go to this link to select the type of page you want to set up.
You can choose whatever type you want but for an author it's probably best to go with public figure.
When you're done, click Save Info.
You'll come to this page.
You can choose whether to add a profile picture now or later. I added a stock photo of a cricket pitch which I bought for the covers of Michael White's short stories. You can change your profile pic anytime, though. When you're done, click Save Photo or Skip to go to the next page.
The next screen gives you the option to choose the Facebook address for your page. This is the link you can use in your books to send people to your Facebook page.
You'll be taken to your completed page.
Facebook will automatically highlight the Like button so you can be the first person to like your page, and then the area where you can invite your friends to like it.
You're finished! Now all you have to do is add stuff to your page, share it to get Likes and start posting. If you're ready for something a little more complicated, you can set up an Amazon Store for your books in the toolbar. Click here for my guide to doing it.
See, told you it was easy. Enjoy!
Any questions or comments are welcome in the comments section below. And if anyone wants to give Michael White's brand new page some love, here's the link.
Chris Ward
June 23rd 2013
Saturday, 22 June 2013
On maintaining discipline
One year ago, on June 20th to be precise, I took the decision to take my potential career by the horns and pull my writing finger out and use it for what it's for - writing.
From the age of 18 to the age of 33 (as I was then) I had written eight manuscripts, about 80 short stories, and dozens of half-finished novels in a variety of genres. Some of the canned pieces were 100,000 words in length.
When I started self-publishing in January 2012 I immediately saw it as a potential career, providing I took it seriously and did what needed to be done to make my dream a reality.
18 months down the line I'm still not a professional writer but I sell almost every day and have made 100 plus sales a month for six months in a row, a far cry from the 20 sales (if I was lucky) I was making per month this time last year.
Part of that was due to understanding that I needed to increase my output. You can't sell books that you haven't written.
So I pulled my finger out. I deleted the internet connection from the computer I was using to write on, and set up a spreadsheet to keep a tab of my progress.
The result -
370,150 new words, at an average of 1014 per day, or 1234 pages (what a lovely number) in twelve months. At 80,000 words for an average thriller novel that's the equivalent of four and a half novels, or more than one every quarter.
Most traditionally published novelists put out a book every year or so. In the ebook world you are quickly forgotten if you don't keep up the production schedule and continue to build and grow your audience. As a good writing friend of mine says, you're either shrinking or growing.
Just to put things in perspective, I'm not a full time writer. I have a day job, and I also work part time. Some days I leave the house at 7.30 a.m. and get home at 10 p.m. I'm also married, play in a rock band and take part in various community events. I'm not exactly overburdened with free time.
Yet I still managed to write more than four novels in a year. How?
Sacrifices.
I don't watch TV. TV is rot for the soul. I hate it and the fact that it exists purely to fill bored, tired minds with junk between work and sleep. So that was easy to give up.
The other thing I cut back on was my social life. I still go out on occasion, but I used to go out every weekend. The fact was, that time I was sitting in a pub shooting the shit was time I could spend writing. I also cut back on a lot of hobbies. I used to do loads of stuff - climbing mountains, snowboarding, playing cricket. I still do some (because what is writing without life?) but I cut back so I could spend more time on something that I hope will be my career. In ideal circumstances, in a couple of years I'll be able to quit my day job and take up all my hobbies again. That would certainly be worth the sacrifice.
So, in short, what I'm trying to say with this, is that if you have genuine aspirations to be a writer, then you have to get disciplined. Stop expecting to sell tons and tons within a few days of release. It DOES happen, but it HARDLY EVER happens. Ideally, don't expect to sell a single copy for the first three years, then bust your gut getting as many high quality books out as possible. In the long run it'll be worth it.
That's all for now. More instructional stuff coming soon!
Chris Ward
June 22nd 2013
From the age of 18 to the age of 33 (as I was then) I had written eight manuscripts, about 80 short stories, and dozens of half-finished novels in a variety of genres. Some of the canned pieces were 100,000 words in length.
When I started self-publishing in January 2012 I immediately saw it as a potential career, providing I took it seriously and did what needed to be done to make my dream a reality.
18 months down the line I'm still not a professional writer but I sell almost every day and have made 100 plus sales a month for six months in a row, a far cry from the 20 sales (if I was lucky) I was making per month this time last year.
Part of that was due to understanding that I needed to increase my output. You can't sell books that you haven't written.
So I pulled my finger out. I deleted the internet connection from the computer I was using to write on, and set up a spreadsheet to keep a tab of my progress.
The result -
370,150 new words, at an average of 1014 per day, or 1234 pages (what a lovely number) in twelve months. At 80,000 words for an average thriller novel that's the equivalent of four and a half novels, or more than one every quarter.
Most traditionally published novelists put out a book every year or so. In the ebook world you are quickly forgotten if you don't keep up the production schedule and continue to build and grow your audience. As a good writing friend of mine says, you're either shrinking or growing.
Just to put things in perspective, I'm not a full time writer. I have a day job, and I also work part time. Some days I leave the house at 7.30 a.m. and get home at 10 p.m. I'm also married, play in a rock band and take part in various community events. I'm not exactly overburdened with free time.
Yet I still managed to write more than four novels in a year. How?
Sacrifices.
I don't watch TV. TV is rot for the soul. I hate it and the fact that it exists purely to fill bored, tired minds with junk between work and sleep. So that was easy to give up.
The other thing I cut back on was my social life. I still go out on occasion, but I used to go out every weekend. The fact was, that time I was sitting in a pub shooting the shit was time I could spend writing. I also cut back on a lot of hobbies. I used to do loads of stuff - climbing mountains, snowboarding, playing cricket. I still do some (because what is writing without life?) but I cut back so I could spend more time on something that I hope will be my career. In ideal circumstances, in a couple of years I'll be able to quit my day job and take up all my hobbies again. That would certainly be worth the sacrifice.
So, in short, what I'm trying to say with this, is that if you have genuine aspirations to be a writer, then you have to get disciplined. Stop expecting to sell tons and tons within a few days of release. It DOES happen, but it HARDLY EVER happens. Ideally, don't expect to sell a single copy for the first three years, then bust your gut getting as many high quality books out as possible. In the long run it'll be worth it.
That's all for now. More instructional stuff coming soon!
Chris Ward
June 22nd 2013
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
What Makes a Good Character and Avoiding Steve Syndrome
(Note: Originally published on my main blog, A Million Miles From Anywhere in November 2012. Apologies to readers who've seen this before - this is it's new home and I'll be bringing you new content soon)
What makes a good character?
I’ve been reading a couple of books recently (yes, really) and a couple of thoughts came to mind regarding characters, their development, and the empathy readers have with them.
In one book I read a few months ago, a YA dystopia, the male lead’s only recognizable feature was his spiky hair. On top of this he appears to be good-looking. No surprise there. The female lead is a teenage girl who appears to be Bella out of Twilight with a different name. Several reviewers have mentioned “great characters”. Um, why? The guy is a TV presenter transposed into a sci-fi novel. The girl is a high-school girl of regular attractiveness and intelligence who will obviously at some point get with the guy. There’s nothing at all that makes either of them special or makes them stand out.
And perhaps here we have the answer.
Do readers, particularly young adult readers, merely want a character that they can pretend to be? So that they can pretend to be in the book itself, interacting with the other characters as if they were real?
Another recent book I read, an acknowledged sci-fi classic, had a review bemoaning the lack of character development. The book was set on a foreign planet, and revolved around a guy finding out what was going on in his world. Which he did, and it was great. Why would I need the guy to have some kind of big change in his life? The story wasn't just about the guy, it was about the whole world around him.
Another issue I have is with empathy. Matt Cassidy, the central character in The Man Who Built the World (that's him looking miserable on the cover), is an alcoholic, borderline wife-beater who hates pretty much everything. He’s intentionally detestable, in fact I went out of my way to give him no redeeming features. The point of the book is such that through his story you discover why he is how he is, and whether he can find redemption. You're not supposed to like him.
I once had a blogger pull out of reviewing the book because they couldn’t identify with him. While I fully respect the reviewer’s opinion this pleased me in a certain way because I don’t want my readers to identify with him. I want them to pity or hate or be repulsed by him.
I don’t write books with swimwear models or high school nice guys for characters. If you find one, you can be sure he or she won’t last long. Charles de Molay, star of my favorite of my unpublished novels, Hooks, is a cripple. Dan Barker in Head of Words is a nutjob. Even the Tube Riders have their issues. Marta - the only one close to being good-looking, hardly ever gets to wash and her dreadlocks are a case of more grime than intention. Switch has, for want of a better expression, a fucked up eye, and Paul is balding and overweight. It’s not just about their looks, either, but their actions. In a lot of books nothing seriously bad ever happens to the main characters, or they never do anything bad, take your pick. In Tube Riders, Marta sleeps with guys to pay her rent (or at least she did before the book starts). Paul does even worse. Switch kills without thinking whether his victim deserved it or not.
A reviewer recently said my book contained “real people”. This was perhaps the biggest compliment someone could ever give me. It doesn't matter if they liked it or not, they gotit. In real life people don’t always do the right thing, and they certainly aren’t always good-looking. For every Che Guevara (cool enough to spawn a billion t-shirts) or Aung Sung Suu Kyi (gorgeous - at least in her youth, damn) there are hundreds of thousands of 'heroes' that are nothing much to look at. It is totally possible for someone who isn’t cool or an oil painting to have an adventure, to be a hero.
So what do I think makes a good character?
I used to suffer from something I call Steve Syndrome. I would have a couple of main characters who were more distinctive then everyone else would be a Steve (apologies to anyone called Steve!). This would be a character who had no real features or definition and often a generic name (the first character I identified as having this problem, in my third novel, Resort, was called Steve - hence the name). In Tube Riders, both Paul and Simon were originally Steves. Marta and Switch were always pretty well-defined, but I had to make a real effort to make Simon and Paul distinct. Paul I made fat and more unattractive, while with Simon I went the other way, making him more feminine, almost androgynous.
Therefore, the first thing that I believe is important is memorability (is that even a word?!). A good character has to be memorable. And not just by having a cute smile - that’s not memorable, it’s generic - they have to have some feature or mannerism (or both) which makes them stand out. It doesn’t have to be good, and it doesn’t have to be bad.
Also extremely important is voice. People talk differently. Some people swear, some people don’t. Some people say certain words more often than others. Some people talk in long sentences, others talk in short, clipped phrases. You should (within reason) be able to write a three- or four- way dialogue without using any identifying dialogue tags yet still have the reader know who is speaking each time. If you can do that, you’ve got it.
Also very important to me (as you’ll notice from my character descriptions above) is flaws. I hate good-looking, perfect characters. Boooorrrriing. Have you ever met anyone who was perfect? (Actually, I have met a couple of people who were, and god they were dull). Perfect characters are only allowed in comedy, because their very perfection can make them hilarious (see my novella series, Beat Down!, for an example).
So what do people think? Obviously few people agree with me. I’ve sold roughly 1000 books this year so far. How many has Stephanie Meyer sold? A billion? Even the book I was complaining about above has probably sold double what I've sold. So, I’m likely wrong (except in my own head of course!), but I’d love to hear your ideas on what you think makes a good character.
CW
June 19th 2013
(originally published 27 Nov 2012)
Saturday, 8 June 2013
How to add an Amazon Store to your Facebook Page
Take a quick look at my Facebook page. There, next to the Mailing List is a button saying "Store".
Why is this awesome? Well, not only can my fans easily view my bookstore and click the links to go straight to the Amazon page for each book, but the links go through my affiliate account so any purchases make me a few extra pennies.
Personally I think this is really cool, and it's pretty easy to do. In this blog I'll tell you how.
First of all, big thanks to Phyllis Zimbler Miller for this guide and YA author Elle Casey for posting this information on this thread on Kindleboards. This is basically a pictorial step-by-step guide comprised of this information.
To do this, you will need a Facebook page for your writing. That is a proper page, which people "like", not a personal page.
You will also need an Amazon Associates account. If you don't have one, sign up here.
Finally, you will need to add a Static I-Frame to your Facebook page. This is pretty easy, just click this link, the big blue button in the middle and then select the page you want to add it to. Easy.
Once you have your I-frame ready for your Facebook page, log in to your Amazon Associates account and click the "astore" button in the middle of the picture below.
In the sidebar, click on Category Pages.
Then, Add Category Page (please note, there are more options in these pictures than you'll see because I've already set a store up).
Then, Add Products.
On the next screen, choose the field you want to search and then enter your book name or ASIN. Of course, you can create a store for any products you like, not just your own books. You can see the results below when I put in one of my books. Click Add to add any products you wish. They will then appear in the Added Products box.
If you want to order your books in a certain way or add specific text, click on the book in the Added Products box on the left above, and this box will appear -
Add your order or text and click save.
When you've added all the books you wish, click on Back to Category Pages, which is at the bottom of the search results page.
Then click on Continue at the bottom of the first screen.
Next to you come a page where you can decide your colours and design, as well as give your store a name. When you're done, click Continue at the bottom of the page.
The next page you come to allows you to add extra stuff such as side bars, wishlists, and the like. I kept mine simple, but it's up to you. When you're done, click Finish & Get Link at the bottom. You're almost there!
On the next page, select the second option, "Embed my store using an inline frame". Then highlight and copy the link. To make sure your store covers the full screen, edit "width" in the link to say "100".
Now,
return to Facebook. If you've already added your inline frame, it'll
look like the "Welcome" button below (this is from my pen name's page).
Click it and you'll see this -
This terrified me, and stumped me for about twenty minutes. Don't worry, simply change "http" to "https" (maybe this is obvious to the computer types out there, but I struggle with the complexity of a typewriter ...!) The red message will immediately disappear. Click Save & Publish (the blue box on the top right) and you're done.
Now all you have to do is edit the button itself. Put your cursor over the button and you'll see a little pencil appear in the top right corner. Click it and you'll see this box -
Click "Edit Settings" and this box will appear. Now you can rename your store or at an icon or picture.
You'll remember from my first picture that I had a nice little icon for my store. This was actually a stock icon I bought from a stock photo website called Pond 5. You can do the same or add a picture of your own. Anything will do.
And you're done! Good luck with your store - I hope many people visit it (and feel free to visit mine anytime!)
Chris Ward
June 8th 2013
Friday, 31 May 2013
Goals and how to motivate yourself
(Please note ... this blog was originally published on my main blog in March 2013. This is it's new home)
Recently had a few indie authors get in touch with me and one thing I've found that many people have in common when they start out is issues with movitivation.
Just as a disclaimer - I'm a lazy bastard. Doing something hardcore like getting up at 5 a.m. in mid-winter to write for two hours before work just isn't going to happen. In general I'd much rather surf Facebook or mess around on YouTube than be productive. I'd been scrapping around for years writing a book here and a book there without ever really getting anywhere.
On the 24th of January 2012, I entered the world of self-publishing for the first time with a short story called Forever My Baby. I was five days shy of my 33rd birthday, and after fifteen years of collecting rejection slips from agents and publishers I decided to give it a crack on my own.
I had seven novels and roughly eighty short stories already written, in various states of repair. I knew that I couldn't just rely on the backlist, though, I would need new material.
When I first pressed that self-publish button I was hellbent on eventually making writing my career. I knew I had the talent - I'd sold thirty odd short stories to magazines, two of them professionally, and Tube Riders came within a whisker of getting an agent - but whether I would have the dedication and the business sense to get anywhere on my own was another thing entirely.
Prior to self-publishing, my writing motivation was at an all time low. In 2011, for example, I wrote perhaps 20,000 words. That's nothing.
When I first started self-publishing, I concentrated on getting out the backlist, a few short stories, a collection, and then Tube Riders in March. The rest of the time I spent doing things like playing around on Twitter and emailing bloggers. In June I decided I needed new material.
Since June 20th last year I've written 325,000 words. It would probably be a lot more but for the last month I've done nothing but editing.
That's the equivalent of three full novels, or roughly a novel every three months. There are guys I know writing a novel a month but those are God-like levels. Three to four novels a year is a pretty solid output for an average mortal like me.
How?
It's an easy answer - goals.
I have dozens of little goals, and each one of them is important, but I don't want to talk about me, I want to talk about what you - the starting out writer - can do to motivate yourself.
The first and foremost rule of setting goals is to keep them attainable. Set yourself stupidly difficult goals and you'll spend all your time frustrated.
As example of a bad goal - last November I was feeling all confident so I took on NaNoWriMo. I took it a step further - I tried to write a 50,000 novel from scratch while carrying on with all my other stuff.
It was a bridge too far.
I started out okay, but a week in my computer broke. I lost 10,000 words, most of them on my NaNo. I started out again, but it just wasn't to be - I had another computer crash and lost another 5000. You guessed it - that was my NaNo. I tried a third time but my motivation was done and I quit. And all the while I was wasting time trying to force myself to rewrite a novel that I was force-writing in the first place, I lost ground on all my other stuff.
Big mistake.
Keep your goals simple.
Wordcounts
Wordcounts are the easy one. If you struggle to write 1000 words a day but can quite easily get 600 - 700, set your goal at 500. That way, you'll easily attain it and you'll feel good about yourself. If you set your goal at 1500 and you only make 1200, even though you've actually achieved more, you'll feel like you haven't.
Make a big spreadsheet, and every time you start a new work in progress, put it in and keep a daily tally of the wordcount. Don't limit it to daily, either - have monthly and yearly targets plus targets for each work. If you're like me and usually have five or six different WIPs on the go all at the same time, you'll find that you'll always be within 100 - 200 words of one target or another. Keep pushing to get that extra 100 - 200 words down and then you'll see another little target to aim for. I can easily get 2000 words down by aiming for these little targets.
One other little thing that I cannot say often enough - if you can't touch type, LEARN. It's the one single most useful skill I have. People tell me my writing has really good rhythm - that's because I can type it almost as quickly as I think it. If you're plodding away with two fingers doing ten words a minute - get a program off the internet or take a course. You won't regret it. It takes time to learn - after doing a course in my final year of school - I spent six months with a tea towel draped over my hands while forcing myself to use the correct fingers for each key. It was brutally frustrating, but so, so worth it. So, one more time LEARN TO TOUCH TYPE. Don't um and ah, and mutter about how difficult it is when you start out ... JUST DO IT. Trust me on this ...
Publications
Once you've started publishing, set publication goals. Remember to keep them realistic. For example, in 2012 I published 21 items - two novels, one short story collection, two novellas, one novel split into three and a bunch of short stories. My aim for the end of 2013 is to hit 40. I just published item number 25 and I have nos 26, 27, 28 and 29 in the can and ready to go. It'll be a push but with a handful of short stories I should make it. My target for 2014 will probably be 50 - by the end of next year I'll have a lot less backlog and will be relying mostly on new material. Remember - as a self-published author you're not just relying on only new material - you can bump up your publication count by creating packages or bundles. For example, if you have ten short stories, there's no reason why you can't have two collections of five, an omnibus of ten, and then each story individually, all at different prices. Remember, this is business. I don't agree with ripping people off but what you're doing is offering purchasing options while increasing your visibility. Buyers choose whether they want to buy something. As long as your description accurately matches what they're buying, you're not doing anything wrong.
My goals are pretty high but I consider them attainable. Remember to set your own - for example a short story every two months, or a novel every six months, or one novel and two short stories a year. Keep your targets within what you are confident you can achieve.
Marketing Goals
You can pick and choose what these are, depending on your preferred forms of marketing. If you use Facebook a lot, then you can aim at building up your number of likes. I'm currently aiming for 500, mostly by using Facebook ads to target possible readers and then engaging the people that join up as much as possible to make them stay ... for a comprehensive breakdown on how to use Facebook for marketing, study and memorise every word of this excellent post by a good writing buddy of mine, John Daulton. That is the blueprint to using Facebook as an author.
Twitter, also is another one that authors often use. I'm not a big fan, but setting follower goals or tweet goals can be useful. Personally I've had little success through Twitter, mainly because I hate it, but some people swear by it.
Goodreads is my favorite place on the net for marketing. There are tons of things you can do there - set up groups, run events, giveaways, all sorts. One stat I keep an eye on and try to improve is how many users have my books on their to-read shelves. You can get on loads of these by doing paperback giveaways. My target for 2013 is 2000 unique users. Currently it's 1082, but I should make it if I do perhaps one giveaway - of a single book at a time - every two months. This is one of those things that you won't see an immediate sales bump for, but it's part of visibility and its that whole "speculate to accumulate" thing. I currently put about 80% of what I earn into marketing and book stuff - covers, formatting, editing, proofreading.
When you start out, it's best to concentrate most on writing rather than marketing. This post by the very successful thriller writer Robert J. Crane basically sums up why. In short, if you write a book that someone likes, you want them to have a bunch of others to choose from. It's possible to blow up and be a bestseller with one book, but it's rare. You're far more likely to have steady success across ten books.
Sales Targets
My personal favorite - this is where you get the cash. In theory ... Again, be realistic. If you have just one short story out you might be lucky to make a sale a month. I've been there. I have shorts out now that haven't sold a single copy in six months.
As always, keep them reasonable. Of course, when I published Tube Riders last March, I was hoping to have sold 10,000 copies by the end of the year. It didn't happen - but that doesn't mean it won't sell 10,000 this year, or next year. However, putting your money on a sudden boom like this is unrealistic. They happen, but not often. It's far better to look at your overall trends and aim for a gradual improvement as you put your books out. By August or September last year my target was a sale a day - and it was a struggle, but they gradually came (mostly from hammering Amazon free promos). This year my aim is 100 sales/month. I've managed it four months in a row, mostly through endless free and bargain book promos, some of which are costing me money. Again, speculate to accumulate. If you're a real writer you're in this for the long haul - building up repeat customers over time is of paramount importance.
Long Term Goals
So, what do you want from all this? Do you want to be a pro, or do you just want to make a bit of cash for a year or two? It's all up to you, of course, but again here's another opportunity to set targets.
Mine, of course, are huge. I started this just shy of my 33rd birthday and my goal is to be doing this for a living by the time I'm 40. Seven years. In the interim, my three year goal is to be making $500 a month. I'm currently making about $200, although most of that is going back into the business. I'm not getting rich yet. Still, got to start somewhere ...
As always, look at what you think you can achieve, and keep your goals realistic. I know writers who've been able to quit their day jobs within six months, but out of half a million or so self-published writers that really is like being struck by lightning. It might happen, but it probably won't, so plan according to what you think is attainable.
Well, my hands are getting tired from typing all this, and I apologise for not being one of those bloggers who breaks up blocks of endless text with cute pictures - I could put some book covers in but I think you've seen all those already ... I hope some of you out there find this useful. Feel free to add any comments or link to this blog anywhere you like and if I think of any more information to add I'll update the blog as I get to it. Most of it is pretty basic stuff but you're building your career from the ground up after all ...
Chris Ward
June 1st 2013
(originally published March 23rd 2013)
Recently had a few indie authors get in touch with me and one thing I've found that many people have in common when they start out is issues with movitivation.
Just as a disclaimer - I'm a lazy bastard. Doing something hardcore like getting up at 5 a.m. in mid-winter to write for two hours before work just isn't going to happen. In general I'd much rather surf Facebook or mess around on YouTube than be productive. I'd been scrapping around for years writing a book here and a book there without ever really getting anywhere.
On the 24th of January 2012, I entered the world of self-publishing for the first time with a short story called Forever My Baby. I was five days shy of my 33rd birthday, and after fifteen years of collecting rejection slips from agents and publishers I decided to give it a crack on my own.
I had seven novels and roughly eighty short stories already written, in various states of repair. I knew that I couldn't just rely on the backlist, though, I would need new material.
When I first pressed that self-publish button I was hellbent on eventually making writing my career. I knew I had the talent - I'd sold thirty odd short stories to magazines, two of them professionally, and Tube Riders came within a whisker of getting an agent - but whether I would have the dedication and the business sense to get anywhere on my own was another thing entirely.
Prior to self-publishing, my writing motivation was at an all time low. In 2011, for example, I wrote perhaps 20,000 words. That's nothing.
When I first started self-publishing, I concentrated on getting out the backlist, a few short stories, a collection, and then Tube Riders in March. The rest of the time I spent doing things like playing around on Twitter and emailing bloggers. In June I decided I needed new material.
Since June 20th last year I've written 325,000 words. It would probably be a lot more but for the last month I've done nothing but editing.
That's the equivalent of three full novels, or roughly a novel every three months. There are guys I know writing a novel a month but those are God-like levels. Three to four novels a year is a pretty solid output for an average mortal like me.
How?
It's an easy answer - goals.
I have dozens of little goals, and each one of them is important, but I don't want to talk about me, I want to talk about what you - the starting out writer - can do to motivate yourself.
The first and foremost rule of setting goals is to keep them attainable. Set yourself stupidly difficult goals and you'll spend all your time frustrated.
As example of a bad goal - last November I was feeling all confident so I took on NaNoWriMo. I took it a step further - I tried to write a 50,000 novel from scratch while carrying on with all my other stuff.
It was a bridge too far.
I started out okay, but a week in my computer broke. I lost 10,000 words, most of them on my NaNo. I started out again, but it just wasn't to be - I had another computer crash and lost another 5000. You guessed it - that was my NaNo. I tried a third time but my motivation was done and I quit. And all the while I was wasting time trying to force myself to rewrite a novel that I was force-writing in the first place, I lost ground on all my other stuff.
Big mistake.
Keep your goals simple.
Wordcounts
Wordcounts are the easy one. If you struggle to write 1000 words a day but can quite easily get 600 - 700, set your goal at 500. That way, you'll easily attain it and you'll feel good about yourself. If you set your goal at 1500 and you only make 1200, even though you've actually achieved more, you'll feel like you haven't.
Make a big spreadsheet, and every time you start a new work in progress, put it in and keep a daily tally of the wordcount. Don't limit it to daily, either - have monthly and yearly targets plus targets for each work. If you're like me and usually have five or six different WIPs on the go all at the same time, you'll find that you'll always be within 100 - 200 words of one target or another. Keep pushing to get that extra 100 - 200 words down and then you'll see another little target to aim for. I can easily get 2000 words down by aiming for these little targets.
One other little thing that I cannot say often enough - if you can't touch type, LEARN. It's the one single most useful skill I have. People tell me my writing has really good rhythm - that's because I can type it almost as quickly as I think it. If you're plodding away with two fingers doing ten words a minute - get a program off the internet or take a course. You won't regret it. It takes time to learn - after doing a course in my final year of school - I spent six months with a tea towel draped over my hands while forcing myself to use the correct fingers for each key. It was brutally frustrating, but so, so worth it. So, one more time LEARN TO TOUCH TYPE. Don't um and ah, and mutter about how difficult it is when you start out ... JUST DO IT. Trust me on this ...
Publications
Once you've started publishing, set publication goals. Remember to keep them realistic. For example, in 2012 I published 21 items - two novels, one short story collection, two novellas, one novel split into three and a bunch of short stories. My aim for the end of 2013 is to hit 40. I just published item number 25 and I have nos 26, 27, 28 and 29 in the can and ready to go. It'll be a push but with a handful of short stories I should make it. My target for 2014 will probably be 50 - by the end of next year I'll have a lot less backlog and will be relying mostly on new material. Remember - as a self-published author you're not just relying on only new material - you can bump up your publication count by creating packages or bundles. For example, if you have ten short stories, there's no reason why you can't have two collections of five, an omnibus of ten, and then each story individually, all at different prices. Remember, this is business. I don't agree with ripping people off but what you're doing is offering purchasing options while increasing your visibility. Buyers choose whether they want to buy something. As long as your description accurately matches what they're buying, you're not doing anything wrong.
My goals are pretty high but I consider them attainable. Remember to set your own - for example a short story every two months, or a novel every six months, or one novel and two short stories a year. Keep your targets within what you are confident you can achieve.
Marketing Goals
You can pick and choose what these are, depending on your preferred forms of marketing. If you use Facebook a lot, then you can aim at building up your number of likes. I'm currently aiming for 500, mostly by using Facebook ads to target possible readers and then engaging the people that join up as much as possible to make them stay ... for a comprehensive breakdown on how to use Facebook for marketing, study and memorise every word of this excellent post by a good writing buddy of mine, John Daulton. That is the blueprint to using Facebook as an author.
Twitter, also is another one that authors often use. I'm not a big fan, but setting follower goals or tweet goals can be useful. Personally I've had little success through Twitter, mainly because I hate it, but some people swear by it.
Goodreads is my favorite place on the net for marketing. There are tons of things you can do there - set up groups, run events, giveaways, all sorts. One stat I keep an eye on and try to improve is how many users have my books on their to-read shelves. You can get on loads of these by doing paperback giveaways. My target for 2013 is 2000 unique users. Currently it's 1082, but I should make it if I do perhaps one giveaway - of a single book at a time - every two months. This is one of those things that you won't see an immediate sales bump for, but it's part of visibility and its that whole "speculate to accumulate" thing. I currently put about 80% of what I earn into marketing and book stuff - covers, formatting, editing, proofreading.
When you start out, it's best to concentrate most on writing rather than marketing. This post by the very successful thriller writer Robert J. Crane basically sums up why. In short, if you write a book that someone likes, you want them to have a bunch of others to choose from. It's possible to blow up and be a bestseller with one book, but it's rare. You're far more likely to have steady success across ten books.
Sales Targets
My personal favorite - this is where you get the cash. In theory ... Again, be realistic. If you have just one short story out you might be lucky to make a sale a month. I've been there. I have shorts out now that haven't sold a single copy in six months.
As always, keep them reasonable. Of course, when I published Tube Riders last March, I was hoping to have sold 10,000 copies by the end of the year. It didn't happen - but that doesn't mean it won't sell 10,000 this year, or next year. However, putting your money on a sudden boom like this is unrealistic. They happen, but not often. It's far better to look at your overall trends and aim for a gradual improvement as you put your books out. By August or September last year my target was a sale a day - and it was a struggle, but they gradually came (mostly from hammering Amazon free promos). This year my aim is 100 sales/month. I've managed it four months in a row, mostly through endless free and bargain book promos, some of which are costing me money. Again, speculate to accumulate. If you're a real writer you're in this for the long haul - building up repeat customers over time is of paramount importance.
Long Term Goals
So, what do you want from all this? Do you want to be a pro, or do you just want to make a bit of cash for a year or two? It's all up to you, of course, but again here's another opportunity to set targets.
Mine, of course, are huge. I started this just shy of my 33rd birthday and my goal is to be doing this for a living by the time I'm 40. Seven years. In the interim, my three year goal is to be making $500 a month. I'm currently making about $200, although most of that is going back into the business. I'm not getting rich yet. Still, got to start somewhere ...
As always, look at what you think you can achieve, and keep your goals realistic. I know writers who've been able to quit their day jobs within six months, but out of half a million or so self-published writers that really is like being struck by lightning. It might happen, but it probably won't, so plan according to what you think is attainable.
Well, my hands are getting tired from typing all this, and I apologise for not being one of those bloggers who breaks up blocks of endless text with cute pictures - I could put some book covers in but I think you've seen all those already ... I hope some of you out there find this useful. Feel free to add any comments or link to this blog anywhere you like and if I think of any more information to add I'll update the blog as I get to it. Most of it is pretty basic stuff but you're building your career from the ground up after all ...
Chris Ward
June 1st 2013
(originally published March 23rd 2013)
Friday, 17 May 2013
Nifty little tool for self-published writers
I found this interesting little website mentioned on a forum I frequent the other day. Basically, if you put the ASIN of your book into the search box it will give you a kind of floating spider web diagram showing which books are linked from your book's Also Bought list on Amazon and which books link to you.
If you put your cursor over your book it'll give you a bunch of orange lines. These go to the books from where your book can be found. There's also a box on the left in which you can rank the books in the spidergraph(?) related to your book in terms of things such as ranking and price.
For interest's sake, I put in my book Tube Riders. Just for clarification, I'm writing this on May 18th, and so far this month I've sold just two copies.
There are 84 connected books. Tube Riders ranks lowest in both ranking and popularity. It's second from the top in terms of diversity, whatever that means, and there are no orange arrows pointing inwards, which means a few books are visible from my book, but my book has no visibility from elsewhere.
However, when I put in my current bestseller, Five Tales of Horror, which is selling 2-3 copies a day and has sold nearly 200 since I released it in March, there are a lot of orange arrows pointing in as well as out, meaning it is being seen on a lot of Also Bought lists. From looking at Amazon I can see that many of those books are ranking pretty well, inside the top 5000 or so. Basically, my book is hanging on the coattails of these books, whereas my book Tube Riders isn't hanging anywhere, and the books its connected to are all other unknowns that aren't selling well either.
What does this tell me? In short, that I don't have much visibility. The obvious answer is to sell more books, something that's of course easier said than done. However the right kind of visibility is important. For example, getting on the Also Bought lists of a bunch of unknown books is pretty much a waste of time. This is what happens when you do free promos, because people download at random and free promos are increasingly becoming the playground of the desperate or not very good writer. Bargain books are the way forward, don't you know! Although if you look carefully, you'll often find a lot of my short stories on promo as I don't have a lot else to do with them...
Another thing I noticed from playing around with this site, is that none of my books are linking to each other. When I put in Dan Brown's new book, the biggest group of Also Boughts linking to and from his new book were all his other books. It's become kind of a sport among unknown writers to dump on Dan Brown's writing skills (for what it's worth I've read Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons and thought they were both pretty good, although the films were hit and miss), but he clearly has fans. People who bought his other books are all over his new book regardless of what the snobish non-selling indie community thinks of it. Looking at my own graphs proves that I don't really have fans, just people who see my books and pick them up because they're cheap or free or whatever. Hopefully when I put out the next book in the Tube Riders series I'll start to see a few more backwards and forwards arrows.
And talking of which, I'd better get back to editing it. So if you've got some books out, have a little play around with this tool. It's kind of interesting.
Chris Ward
18th May 2013
If you put your cursor over your book it'll give you a bunch of orange lines. These go to the books from where your book can be found. There's also a box on the left in which you can rank the books in the spidergraph(?) related to your book in terms of things such as ranking and price.
For interest's sake, I put in my book Tube Riders. Just for clarification, I'm writing this on May 18th, and so far this month I've sold just two copies.
There are 84 connected books. Tube Riders ranks lowest in both ranking and popularity. It's second from the top in terms of diversity, whatever that means, and there are no orange arrows pointing inwards, which means a few books are visible from my book, but my book has no visibility from elsewhere.
However, when I put in my current bestseller, Five Tales of Horror, which is selling 2-3 copies a day and has sold nearly 200 since I released it in March, there are a lot of orange arrows pointing in as well as out, meaning it is being seen on a lot of Also Bought lists. From looking at Amazon I can see that many of those books are ranking pretty well, inside the top 5000 or so. Basically, my book is hanging on the coattails of these books, whereas my book Tube Riders isn't hanging anywhere, and the books its connected to are all other unknowns that aren't selling well either.
What does this tell me? In short, that I don't have much visibility. The obvious answer is to sell more books, something that's of course easier said than done. However the right kind of visibility is important. For example, getting on the Also Bought lists of a bunch of unknown books is pretty much a waste of time. This is what happens when you do free promos, because people download at random and free promos are increasingly becoming the playground of the desperate or not very good writer. Bargain books are the way forward, don't you know! Although if you look carefully, you'll often find a lot of my short stories on promo as I don't have a lot else to do with them...
Another thing I noticed from playing around with this site, is that none of my books are linking to each other. When I put in Dan Brown's new book, the biggest group of Also Boughts linking to and from his new book were all his other books. It's become kind of a sport among unknown writers to dump on Dan Brown's writing skills (for what it's worth I've read Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons and thought they were both pretty good, although the films were hit and miss), but he clearly has fans. People who bought his other books are all over his new book regardless of what the snobish non-selling indie community thinks of it. Looking at my own graphs proves that I don't really have fans, just people who see my books and pick them up because they're cheap or free or whatever. Hopefully when I put out the next book in the Tube Riders series I'll start to see a few more backwards and forwards arrows.
And talking of which, I'd better get back to editing it. So if you've got some books out, have a little play around with this tool. It's kind of interesting.
Chris Ward
18th May 2013
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