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Three Tips for New Authors: Ebooks, A Series, and Write Write Write
Three lessons I’ve learned over the past year of indie publishing
As I head toward the final edit of my second book Fallen Spirits, I’ve been researching and taking some refresher courses on book marketing and publishing. My favorite tidbits of information have come from David Gaughran’s Starting from Zero class.
It’s free, and if you’re getting ready to publish, it’s totally worth checking out. He seems like a genuinely nice person, and really goes into detail about his experiences and opinions on publishing. So — please note — some of the information here is from him. Check him out for more!
Focus on Ebooks
I’m not sure where I heard this, but I balked the first time I was told to focus on selling my ebooks. Ebooks, I thought? That’s for people who write a first draft and throw it up online, not for me who’s working toward being a reputable author (who makes a lot of money…).
I’ve since changed my opinion. As we all know, traditional publishers have physical bookstores locked up, even most indie bookstores. But what a lot of people might not realize is that the big publishers tend to have paperback categories in online stores pretty-well under their control also.
The Big 5 have huge marketing budgets they can spend on ads and promotions, and departments full of people who specialize in one piece of the marketing process. How can a beginning indie author compete with that?
And, to be honest, while researching this article, it seems that the large publishing houses are making some serious inroads into the ebook category also.
But, have hope, dear writer! I came across Sav R. Miller. She’s indie published from what I can tell, and has a seven-book series for sale. A couple of the books I saw made over $1,600 last month alone on Kindle only, and one of her books in the series made over $10,500 in a month.
So, there is money to be made, and millions of people read digital books. Authors can…
