Last December, more than one in every 40 adults in the UK received an e-reader as a Christmas present – and with the Kindle, the world’s bestselling e-reader, Amazon has emerged as the clear leader in the field. Meanwhile, with its self-publishing programme Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), the company has been quick to capitalise on what is a huge growth market as more and more writers eschew traditional platforms.
What this means is that for any writer considering going down the self-publishing road for the first time, Amazon is simply the biggest game in town – so much so, it has its own Kindle Million Club with writers such as Amanda Hocking and John Locke selling more than one million copies of their books via KDP.
The key to successful self-publishing is visibility: the higher your title’s profile, the more likely it is to sell. Just to give you an example of how this works, US author Jessica Park’s first self-published novel, Flat-out Love, was selected by Amazon and featured on its list of books for $3.99 and under after she wrote a blog entitled “How Amazon Saved My Life.” She sold 45,000 e-books in one month and continues to have average sales of 3,500 a month a year later. Not bad for a first time out, I think you’ll agree.
In December 2011, Amazon introduced its KDP Select service, a controversial programme that requires authors to remove their books from all retailers except Amazon for at least 90 days. While for some authors, there were significant advantages – namely being introduced to Amazon’s all-important charts for the first time – for others, there was a downside (missing out on the pre-Christmas book-buying rush on other platforms).
Mark Coker, the creator of the self-publishing platform Smashwords, believes that “exclusivity is a dangerous, slippery slope” and advises writers to think twice before surrendering their rights. In his book, The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success he says: “If your book isn’t everywhere all the time, you limit your odds of a breakout. A break out is a rise in sales rank or an appearance on genre or site-wide bestseller lists.”
“Your book can break out at different retailers at different times. Many of these breakouts are random and unexpected. Luck plays an important role. When a book is removed from any retailer, it’s like yanking it out by the roots. It destroys sales rank at each retailer because the book is no longer selling. It prevents break outs,” he adds.
There are a variety of different charts. For example, there’s a Fantasy list, with Game of Thrones author, George RR Martin occupying the top spots. And how do you get onto these charts? Some authors allow a “free run” where readers can download a book for free for a limited period, for example a couple of days. This will garner hundreds if not thousands of downloads, catapulting the title up the charts on its return to the paid side.
These popularity lists are a big deal. For example, in the run-up to Christmas, readers will often look at the charts in order to decide which titles to buy. So a stellar chart position will usually translate into major sales. However, it has been noted by some authors that Amazon has apparently changed the way it sells books. There are now three different sets of charts with paid sales and the number of free book downloads weighted differently in each category. Phew! What this means is that the writer who is serious about self-publishing will have to carefully time any promotions. For example, if you are thinking of doing a free-run promotion around Valentines’ Day, you’ll have to make sure that there are less than 30 days before the event, or the number of downloads won’t impact on your title’s position in the charts. And you will have to regularly monitor your title’s performance to ensure that it doesn’t drop off the charts altogether.
While there are still a number of self-published authors who simply post a message on Twitter or Facebook and think that that sufficient, the more canny writers – those who want to be able to give up their day jobs and write full time – will quickly realise that a little more effort is required. Here are a few tricks of the trade:
1. Buy the best cover you can afford. An arresting front cover image is crucial and will immediately set your title apart from the pack. If you are not a designer yourself, it’s well worth approaching your local college or art school and posting a message on the graphic design department’s bulletin board or online forum. Remember, you get what you pay for, so don’t ask people to work for free – they may not be willing to make any amendments if you need them. If you can afford it, you could even turn it into a design challenge, offering a prize for the best cover. And it’s a great way to raise the profile of your title.
But before commissioning any work, go to the largest bookshop in your area and spend some time looking around at the new releases and the bestsellers. For the cover of my short story, A Bitter Woman, I was inspired by the Penguin Modern Classics series. If you write popular fiction, it’s also worth visiting your local supermarket, especially the superstores. When it comes to bookselling, supermarkets have a “pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap” philosophy. Every week, traditional publishers release hundreds of titles. So if a particular book is chosen for the supermarket shelves, then they are expecting the title to do significant business. If you write popular fiction, these are the titles to pay close attention to. Take a look at the covers. What information is featured?
2. Find bloggers to review or preview your title. If you haven’t already done so, sign up for the networking website Linkedin.com and post a request. You may well be able to come to a quid pro quo arrangement with another self-published author. Remember, the more positive reviews you can muster, the better.
3. Be everywhere and be nice. If you intend to publish more than one title, then you really need to sign up for all the social media sites you can think of – Pinterest, Facebook, MySpace etc. Connect to all the authors whose work you admire and take care not to post any catty remarks. Once you hit that “return” button, you can’t get it back and it will haunt you in cyberspace forever. It pays to remember a little goodwill goes a long way.
As a self-published author, you have to wear all the “hats”. In order to get your work out there and promote it, you have to professionally edit, revise and package each title, as well as handle sales, marketing and publicity, so it pays to do your research. For example, if you publish stories for children or young adults, then you are more likely to reach your target audience via Hi5, MySpace and Bebo, which all have audiences that skew younger than, say, Facebook. If, on the other hand, you write fiction aimed at young mothers, then connect with readers via Mumsnet.
4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Find out how other successful authors have done it. What can you learn from them? With the internet, pretty much everyone is just a click of the mouse away. Write a flattering email, and who knows? They may just be willing to share a few secrets with you.
5. Dramatise your ideas. This advise comes from the famous self-help book, How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie – a book that, incidentally, has never been out of print in more than eighty years. Here’s the thing: books that have “promos” or trailers sell considerably better than those that don’t. This approach works especially well for crime novels and thrillers, but there’s no reason why writers of other genres can’t make use of the practice. Making a trailer for your book needn’t be prohibitively expensive. Again, if your local college offers a film course, approach the department with a request for a young director. Alternatively, post a request on a film community website such as Shootingpeople.org or Mandy.com. If you offer to feed the crew and reimburse travel expenses, you may well form a productive relationship with an up-and-coming director. Alternatively, you can easily do it yourself with just a digital camera and a computer – as long as you have either iMovies or Microsoft Movie Maker. Post your finished trailer on Youtube, where you can see other examples of what writers have done.
