Tuesday Takeover: Mark Coker Interview by Amos Cassidy

Hello, Folks!

Hope you’re all good. Well, after a week of gorgeous weather here in the UK, the rain is now back to do its thing. Oh, well. But never mind the weather…

Today we welcome Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, to the blog. Mark has kindly popped over here to answer some questions from us and from other indie authors. So grab a coffee, or a tea, or even a beer if you fancy one, and join us for this interview…

Over to you, Mark…

One of the questions many authors planning on going wide are asking is ‘Smashwords or another aggregator? What would you say to those authors? What sets Smashwords apart from the dozens of other aggregators?

There are several competent distributors out there, and I would hope that if an author doesn’t work with us they work with another.  Distributors such as Smashwords provide authors a lot of advantages they can’t get simply by uploading direct to each retailer.  The primary advantages are time-savings, simplicity and control.  We allow authors to reach multiple global retailers with a single upload, and then we provide centralized control via the Smashwords Dashboard that helps expedite price updates, metatadata changes and sales reporting.  And, of course, we help authors reach retailers and libraries than can’t be reached without a distributor.

Although authors have many choices, some of which charge fees and others of which are free such as Smahwords, I think authors who work with us will enjoy more tools and broader reach.  With tools and broader reach come more sales opportunities.  And authors who are chose to work with any distributor should also still work with us because we’ll enhance their reach.

I’m happy to share a few features and benefits of Smashwords, several of which are unique to Smashwords when comparing us against the many different distribution options out there.

  1. We’re the original ebook publishing platform for indie authors, and the world’s largest distributor of self-published ebooks.  We’re currently publishing over 375,000 books from over 100,000 indie authors and small independent presses.  We were among the first to open up mainstream retailers to indie ebooks, and we’ve negotiated great terms for our authors across our distribution partners.  We’re constantly innovating new tools designed to give our authors advantages in the marketplace.
  2. We make ebook publishing incredibly quick and easy. Authors can upload a Word .doc or a professionally designed epub.  Our Smashwords Style Guide teaches authors how to create professionally formatted and styled ebooks using a word processor.
  3. Rapid distribution to retailers.  For most of our retailers, we’re delivering new titles and metadata updates around the clock.  It’s not unusual for an author to upload a new book or a preorder and see that book appear at iBooks a couple hours later (or sooner).  All of our author retailers have also significantly improved the speed of their listings.  Most of our delivering are processed and up at our retailers within a couple business days.
  4. Broadest distribution network across retailers and libraries, including iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, OverDrive (serves over 20,000 public libraries), Baker & Taylor Axis 360 (serves hundreds of libraries), Inktera (formerly PageFoundry, powers about a dozen small ebook app stores), Oyster and Scribd.  We even distribute a small number of titles to Amazon for a small subset of our better selling authors who request it.  More retailers and library partners are on the way.
  5. We operate our own store atwww.smashwords.com offering exclusive sales and merchandising tools.  For readers, a single purchase at the Smashwords Store enables them to enjoy your book in multiple formats, assuming the author uploaded their manuscript as a Word .doc which is what most authors do.  For authors, even if an author is using another distributor, they should still list their book in our store.  Some of the exclusive tools we offer include Smashwords Coupons (custom coupon codes for percentage-off, dollars/cents off, and free copies for fans and reviewers), free author pages, Smashwords Interviews (self-serve interviews –https://www.smashwords.com/interviews), enhanced series discovery with custom series pages, customizable widgets for off-site marketing and more.  Our store pays the highest royalty rates, up to 80% list depending on the price of the book or the size of the customer’s shopping cart (Books at $.99 often earn 80% list if they’re in a shopping cart with a checkout total over about $8.00).
  6. Preorders – we do regular preorders and “assetless” (meta-only preorders).  We and our authors pioneered many of the best practices associated with ebook preorders, and we share these tips and tricks with our authors.  Learn more athttp://blog.smashwords.com/2015/06/smashwords-introduces-assetless.htmlandhttp://smashwords.com/preorder where you’ll find links to several strategy articles
  7. We provide the industry’s best indie author training materials, and all these resources are free.  Our mission is to help teach indie authors how publish with pride, professionalism and success, and these resources are useful to every author even if they don’t utilize our services.  My three ebooks on ebook publishing best practices have been downloaded almost 750,000 times –The Smashwords Style Guide (how to format and publish an ebook), The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide (how to market any book for free) and The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success (over 30 best practices of the bestselling indie ebook authors).  Also check out my training videos athttp://youtube.com/user/smashwords or my recently uploaded 6-hour presentation deck at http://blog.smashwords.com/2015/07/how-to-publish-ebooks-ebook-publishing.html
  8. Our Daily Sales report provides attractive same-day and next day aggregated sales charts from iBooks, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, OverDrive and the Smashwords Store.  Provides instant feedback on how books are performing across multiple retailers, with tools to drill down by books, channels and more. Charts go back 180 days. Learn more athttp://blog.smashwords.com/2014/06/smashwords-adds-daily-sales-reporting.html .  We of course also provide complete historical sales data than can be viewed online or downloaded as a spreadsheet.
  9. Learn more athttps://www.smashwords.com/about/how_to_publish_on_smashwords

Selling on platforms such as iBooks and Nook through Smashwords can limit merchandising opportunities, is that true? If so, is there a way around it? Can Smashwords help authors snag those merchandising opportunities with iBooks and Nook?

Definitely not true.  Thousands of our authors have achieved special merchandising and promotion opportunities by distributing with Smashwords.  In fact, I’d argue that Smashwords authors gain tremendous merchandising advantage by distributing with Smashwords.  Each week we’re in direct communication with the merchandising teams at all three retailers, highlighting for them our best performing and most promising titles.  The retailers know our recommendations are based on merit, and merit is based on the author’s actual sales performance across the Smashwords distribution network.  If the author isn’t distributing with us, we can’t count their sales and can’t recommend them for merchandising.  In the interest of full disclosure, authors should understand that we can’t promise merchandising love.  But we will coach our authors on how to maximize their chances.  The retailers make the final decisions.  But they do know that our recommendations are based on actual sales results.

We hear you have recently launched something called Assetless pre-orders. I’m not sure that many authors are aware of this feature, or whether other aggregators are offering it yet. Can you tell us a little about Assetless pre-orders and how they can benefit an author?

We’ve been distributing ebook preorders for nearly three years.  We’ve assembled strong data proving without a doubt that books born as preorders sell more copies than books that are simply uploaded the day of release.

An ebook preorder makes it possible for an author to start capturing orders weeks or months in advance of the book’s onsale date.  For example, many authors are on Facebook or Twitter, telling their fans about the next book they’re writing, and generating demand for that book.  A preorder allows the author to capture the reader’s order at the moment they have the reader’s greatest attention and interest.  Preorders can also improve the book’s chancing of hitting both retailer and national bestseller lists.  Up until recently, we required authors to upload a completed manuscript to establish a preorder listing.  The downside of this restriction was that it meant authors were unable to get their preorders up until just a few days or weeks before their release date.

In June 2015 we announced support for assetless preorders, also known as “metadata-only” preorders.  An assetless preorder allows the author to establish their preorder listing up to 12 months in advance, even if they haven’t started writing the book yet.  No manuscript or cover image is required (this can be added later).  This longer preorder runway allows authors to better exploit the full benefits of a preorder.

Preorders are probably the single most important new book marketing tool to come along for indies in the last five years.  Most indies don’t yet know how to leverage preorders (they can check out my preorder strategy posts to learn how!), which means that the indies who do release with preorders have a significant sales and discovery advantage.

You can learn more about this incredible new tool in the announcement at our blog post titled,Smashwords Introduces Assetless (“metadata only”) Preorders.

Any tips on getting those sales up on the actual Smashwords site? Are there any paid promotion sites that focus particularly on Smashwords as a vendor? If not, do you think we can set something up?

The Smashwords Store doesn’t provide any paid advertising opportunities.  The merchandising on the store is completely automated, and it’s designed to leverage our knowledge of what readers are buying, what they’re considering buying as well as the contextual relationships between what they’re looking at and what they and others have purchased.

To take full advantage of what our store has to offer, here are some quick tips:

Upload your manuscript as a Word .doc file, because this allows us to convert your book into multiple ebook formats so you book is readable by readers on any device. We convert to epub, mobi, PDF, plain text and others.

On your blog and in social media, promote direct hyperlinks to your book pages at Smashwords. If you simply say “find my book on Smashwords,” there’s a good chance the reader will get distracted by all the other great books. A direct hyperlink puts the reader one click away from adding your book to their shopping cart.  At the Smashwords store you’ll earn the industry’s highest royalty rates (up to 80% list), so definitely make sure you’ve got links to your books on your blog, website and in social media.  If enough customers purchase your book, your book will get caught up in our automated merchandising systems where you can appear on our store-wide bestsellers lists, genre bestsellers lists, and even bestseller lists by filtered by genre and word count!  Your book can also start appearing in our new “Also

recommended” merchandising which appears on each book page.  It’s like “Also boughts,” but with additional intelligence that goes far beyond just purchase data.

Write a compelling description. A lot of authors make the mistake of not providing a compelling description.  “This is my fourth book of poetry,” for example, is a horrible description yet we see that a lot!

Don’t skimp on the cover image. Readers judge books by the cover.  A great cover makes an aspirational promise to the target reader.  Most home made cover images look just like that – home made.  Rather than creating your own ebook cover image, hire a professional.  There are hundreds of high-quality cover designers who will create covers for under $300.  Carefully study their online porfolios before you select an artist.  We also have  a list of low-cost cover designers and formatters you can use athttp://smashwords.com/list  These freelancers work for you, not us, and we don’t take a commission if you hire them (this helps them keep their costs to lower).

Take advantage of our new Smashwords widgets. Below the shopping cart on every Smashwords book page you’ll find a link to create a widget.  You and your fans can use this tool to create attractive widgets that will dynamically update over time when you change your price or book details.  Encourage your fans to install these widgets on their blogs and web sites!  Here’s an example of the Widget page for my free ebook, The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success.

Create a Smashwords Interview. This is a fun self-interviewing tool that allows you to publish an interview of yourself directly onto your Smashwords author profile page.  We’ll present you with a series of questions, and you have the ability to modify the questions or create your own questions.  It’s a great chance for you to let your readers learn the story behind the author.  Here’s a link to my Smashwords interview: https://www.smashwords.com/interview/mc

Create a compelling author profile page. The author profile page allows you to upload a headshot, publish your bio, and provide direct hyperlinks to your social media pages at Facebook, Twitter, Wattpad, your blog and your website.  You can even add a link to your Amazon author page where readers can purchase your print books (assuming you have print books up at Amazon).  Here’s a link to my profile page: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/mc

If you write series, connect your series books with our cool Series Manager tool. Series Manager increases the discoverability of your series books at Smashwords (and at our retailers too!).  You can even upload a custom image to represent your series, along with a special series description.  Also if you write series, be sure to price your series starter at FREE.  We’ve found that series with free series starters earn more sales than series without free series starters.  Here’s a sample link to the series page for my Smashwords Guides:  https://www.smashwords.com/books/byseries/1

Watch my YouTube videos at http://youtube.com/user where you’ll find best practices information for all skill levels from novice to expert.

Last but not least, write a super-awesome book! This should go without saying but it needs to be said:  There’s a glut of low-cost high-quality books out there.  Most of the major retailers are offering over 2 million ebooks.  In the Smashwords Store, we have nearly 400,000 books (not as bad as 2 million, but still a lot of books!).  Books sell based on word of mouth, and word of mouth is manifested via online reviews, recommendations over social media, and in actual real-world recommendations you might make to friends and family.  To turn a reader into an evangelist, your book needs to take them to an emotionally satisfying extreme.  You need to make the reader go, “WOW!”  As every writer can appreciate, it’s not easy to write a WOW book.  Encourage your Smashwords Store customers to leave you an honest review in our store.  If you want them to leave a review but they purchased the book elsewhere, offer them a free Smashwords Coupon code because once they redeem the code, they can leave a review.

Questions from other indie authors:

I have four eBooks on Smashwords, none of which sell, even though the same eBooks are selling on Amazon. My books have been on Smashwords for over two years. My promotions always result in sales from Amazon, but never Smashwords. Is it my fault?

It’s not your fault, even assuming you’re providing direct links to your books at Smashwords.  Keep in mind that Amazon is the world’s largest ebook retailer and the Smashwords Store is a much much smaller store.  Consider the sales you get at Smashwords as icing on your cake.  Your sales at our larger retailers –iBooks, Barnes & Noble and Kobo, for example – will almost always be higher than what you earn in our store.  That said, from time to time I’ll hear about authors who sell more at Smashwords than at other stores.  I think that’s more of a rare exception than a rule, but possibly these authors are promoting their titles at the Smashwords store more aggressively, or they’ve been with us enough years to develop a large and loyal following.

Do you have any tips on getting iBooks features?

Yes.  First, remember their decisions are merit based.  They’re looking for titles that have either already been endorsed by their customers (as measured by sales, ratings and reviews) or endorsed by readers elsewhere (as measured by your aggregates Smashwords sales across our retailer network).  I created a video about 18 months ago that talks about iBooks merchandising tips.  The tips I share there are also applicable to the merchandising decisions of most other retailers.  Merit merit merit.  View the video athttp://www.youtube.com/user/Smashwords  You’ll also find a more updated and downloadable presentation on iBooks merchandising strategies here in my post, How to Publish Ebooks – An Ebook Publishing Intensive.

Will you distribute to German online-shops any time soon (or any other international online shop)?

Yes, you will see us do more in internationally in the months ahead.

I’m super-disappointed about the loss of FlipKart in India as it’s a mega emerging English-speaking market. I realize you pulled the plug on FlipKart because they were slow to get books in and out and do price changes for authors who like to flit in and out of Kindle Unlimited like the wind, but what about writers like ME who’ve gone wide since the beginning? Why are we being penalized for the actions of a flaky few?

I’m disappointed too.  I wrote a lengthy blog post about the issue athttp://blog.smashwords.com/2015/08/smashwords-and-flipkart-to-end.html and there was also a great discussion in the comments.  We didn’t pull the plug on FlipKart, though it is true we threatened to do so if they didn’t improve their ability to honor the copyrights and takedown wishes of our authors.  We couldn’t allow the situation to persist because too many author were being punished by Amazon.  I completely agree it totally sucks that all our authors got thrown out with the bath water, but as it worked out, FlipKart decided to exit the ebook business according to recent media reports.  I can only speculate, but my guess is that the likelihood of eventual lawsuits from indie authors probably helped them decide it’s not a game worth playing for them.

Flipkart continued. And ditto for a lot of the other smaller distributors who can’t shift with the wind, but might net us all a few local sales. I’d just begun experimenting with an advertising campaign in India of direct-downloads-for-email with great effect when you pulled the plug on one of my primary non-Amazon distributors. I still have GooglePlay and Pothi, but nobody ever BUYS ebooks on Pothi (sadly), just downloads the free ones. The worst thing is, I’ve gathered some raving fans from these experiments; people hungry for new books and eager to tell their friends.  Couldn’t Smashwords create a special opt-in category for these lesser distributors with a big fat warning like ‘warning, B-tier distributors only update their data monthly’ or something? I mean, you say that authors who cater to d’zon are killing all these tiny g-local contenders in their cradle, but then didn’t you just feed the machine by being inflexible?  I mean, if you can do that for some of the obscure library-lending programs, why not for tiny g-local distributors?

If a retailer is unable to respect our authors’ rights, we’re unwilling to work with them.  Our authors trust us to work with quality, capable retailers so we tend to say no to more retailers than we say yes to.  Every major retailer has, at times, struggled with the enormous scale of our catalogue.  We’re publishing nearly 400,000 titles, and these titles are constantly changing with new pricing, updated descriptions, updated books, takedowns, republishings and more.  We’ve build incredibly robust and reliable distribution systems to bring order to this chaos, but we rely on our retailer partners to build robust systems on their end.  FlipKart decided they weren’t able to keep up.

In the age of Amazon and its predatory practices which place indies in the crosshairs if a small retailer like FlipKart can’t keep up, it’s all the more reason we owe it to our authors to carefully choose our partners.  In the case of Amazon they were threatening to disrupt the worldwide sales of these authors simply because a small little retailer – one that probably hadn’t ever sold a copy of the book – was having difficulty removing the book quickly from their shelves.

The good news is that we’ll continue to add retail partners that are capable and that will continue to expand the reach and availability of our books.

Authors who want to directly support our continued efforts to open up new worldwide markets can help by distributing their books with Smashwords, and by opting in to all our distribution channels.  We work for our authors and appreciate your support!

MARK COKER BIO:

Mark Coker founded Smashwords in 2008 to make it fast, free and easy for writers to self-publish an ebook.  Today, Smashwords has grown to become the world’s largest distributor of self-published ebooks.  100,000 authors and small independent presses around the world publish and distribute nearly 400,000 books with Smashwords.  Smashwords provides authors and publishers a robust suite of professional publishing tools that improve the discoverability and sales of their titles.  Smashwords distributes globally to Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, OverDrive, Kobo, Scribd, Oyster, Baker & Taylor Axis 360 and others.  Follow Mark on Twitter@markcoker.  Mark blogs at http://blog.smashwords.com

Thanks for stopping by, Mark!

Amos Cassidy Bio:
Amos Cassidy is the pen name for Richard Amos and Debbie Cassidy. Amos is a 31 year old Diva and Cassidy a 39 year old mother of three; well, four if you include the husband. A common love of all things Joss Whedon, Urban Fantasy, and a tug of war over Jensen Ackles, brought them together, and one cold February afternoon, over nibbles and coffee, their partnership was born.

You can find Cassidy hard at work in her fortress of solitude which has eaten up the majority of her garden, and Amos…well he’s still trying to get the invisibility gizmo he got off a friendly alien in exchange for a pair of earphones to work. Funnily enough he hasn’t been seen around much lately…Frequent doses of Sugary snacks, coupled with regular injections of caffeine aid in their production of a unique brand of cross genre tales. They are always writing, but are happy to take a break to chat to their wonderful readers, so drop them a line at amoscassidy@yahoo.co.uk, or just pop over to see what they’re working on at amoscassidyauthor.com and they’ll bust out the biscuit tin.

***Website ~ Facebook ~ Newsletter ~ Twitter***

Amos

 

 

Jun 7, 2016 | Posted by in Uncategorized | 1 comment

Tuesday Takeover: Become an Indie Author and Get Rich Quick! By David Estes (Proud to be an Indie!)

The statement above is a lie, I have to admit. I only used it to get your attention. By rich I really mean relatively poor. And by quick I mean in ten to twenty years if you’re lucky, talented and a hard worker. So why am I being so negative? I’m not really, just being realistic and trying to set the many aspiring Indie writers’ expectations appropriately. Why? Because more and more people are telling me that they wrote a book and self-published in hopes of making some quick cash, becoming a bestseller, and quitting their day job. I’m not here to shatter those dreams, but I do want to put things into perspective. I’m also here to shed a little light on the question: Why is it so hard to get people to buy self-published books? And along with that, hopefully give a few tips on what I’ve done to overcome that challenge. Keep in mind, although my success has been moderate as an Indie author, everyone has a different style and what works for me may not work for you. You have to find your own niche.

Did I have big dreams when I first starting writing and publishing? You betcha! I had “bestseller” bouncing around in my head, dreams of being well known across the industry, of finding a publisher with my first novel, of quitting my job and becoming a career author! Well, three years later I’m a fulltime author, but none of the other dreams have yet to come to pass. But I’m not giving up, because I’ve gained a lot of perspective and really had time to think about why I write in the first place. It’s not for the possibility of riches or of a publishing contract or of book signings or fame or glory…no, it’s simply because I love it! I’d encourage anyone else who’s thinking about writing a book, already writing one, or having already published one, to ask yourself the same question. If your answer is anything other than you love writing, maybe you’re on the wrong track.

So you’ve written and published a book, woohoo! Success! Right? My answer is a resounding YES! You should be extremely happy, writing a novel is challenging and doing so should be considered a HUGE victory. Even if you don’t sell a single copy, you should be proud. If I sell 10 of my books and you only sell 5 of yours, does that mean mine’s better? Maybe, but not necessarily. It simply means I’ve had more success overcoming the stigma that Indie novels have. Namely, that they’re poorly edited crap that isn’t worth the $0.99 or $2.99 or whatever you pay for it. On that note, why is getting people to buy self-published novels so difficult? Here are my thoughts and solutions.

1. Problem: Editing! Everyone finds typos in novels, even big published ones. Some people roll their eyes, some people laugh and joke, others barely notice or ignore it and move on. But most published novels have few, less than a handful in a 300-400 page book. Indie novels, on the other hand, yikes! I’ve read a few that have had in the 50-100 range, sometimes more! That can be excruciatingly painful for a reader. So anytime someone picks up a self-published book somehow, somewhere, begins reading it, and finds tons of typos, there’s a good chance it’ll hurt every Indie author. Because that person’s going to say “Hmm, self-published books are poorly edited. I don’t know if I’ll read anymore.” We all suffer even though you had nothing to do with that book!

Solution: Firstly, edit edit edit…and then edit some more. Have friends read your books and give prizes for finding the most typos. Have friends of friends read them. Hire a professional copyeditor if you can afford it. Read it ten times yourself. Find every last bugger. Do us all a favor and help erase the stigma. Because when someone reads a typo-free self-published novel, they’ll say, “Wow, this had less typos than that big bestselling published book I just read!” And they’ll realize, there’s more out there than just books from the big publishing houses, so much more.

Am I just talking about typos here? Although that’s a huge part, no! There’s so much more to editing. Cleaning up dialogue, reading it out loud, thinking “would someone really say that?” Killing excessive use of adverbs, sentence structure, pacing, the list goes on and on. Edit your book to death until no one can tell it’s a self-published novel. When people start reading your book, they’ll respect you, they’ll appreciate your effort, and they’ll be much more likely to tell other people about it as well as buy your next one.

Secondly, giveaway free copies of your book! I know, I know, you’ve worked so hard and you deserve to be compensated. You just have to bite the bullet on this one. The only way to ensure people will read your book and appreciate all your hard work and your talent and the painstaking time you took to edit your novel, is to force them to read it. And if you offer it for free, it will greatly increase your chances that they will. If you giveaway ebooks it won’t cost you a thing. Maybe they’ll write you a stellar review, maybe they’ll tell a friend, maybe they’ll buy the next one. Every book you giveaway has the potential to result in real sales later on.

2. Problem: The plots of Indie novels don’t make sense! This can definitely be true sometimes. Hell, my first drafts usually have all kinds of problems! Unfortunately, many times the bugs don’t get worked out, because, well, us Indies don’t have a team of eagle-eyed editors to point out the flaws in our stories. But that’s no excuse, because it’s killing our ability to be taken seriously in the industry.

Solution: Use beta readers. Not just anyone, good ones! People you don’t know, or don’t know well. Honest people. People who would rather make you cry than let you publish something that’s not as good as it can be. People who care about your books being awesome. You can have family and friends beta read for you, but they can’t be your only beta readers, because it’s much less likely they’ll be completely honest with you. I recommend having at least ten people, but even five can make a huge difference if they’re very critical and brutally honest. I say ten because I’ve had an instance when my first nine betas had already checked in, I’d rewritten and addressed their comments, and I was just waiting on that tenth reader as a formality. To check the box and say “Yep, I got all your comments covered because the other nine said the same thing!” Guess what? That tenth person saw something that the other nine didn’t see. Something big. Something HUGE. Something that improved the story and set the plot on a path that I never would have planned, that made the series a million, zillion times better! Everyone sees different things, so take every opinion seriously.

3. Problem: There are too many Indies out there! How do I stand out? With the creation of ereaders and ebooks, self-publishing has never been easier. In less than an hour, I could create a book that contains just my name spelled backwards and forwards over and over again, publish it in print and ebook, and make it available worldwide. I swear half the people I see joining the YA book groups I’m a member of on Goodreads are new or aspiring Indie authors. I think it’s fantastic! But at the same time, it makes it hard to get noticed. This is a real problem for serious Indies looking to make a career out of writing.

Solution: Don’t be just another Indie author hawking their wares on the street. If there’s one thing I’ve learned is that NO ONE is impressed by Indie authors spamming message boards with rubbish about their books. Become a valuable part of the book community as a READER, not a writer. Show people you care about books, writing yeah, reading more, but NOT SELLING. People will notice and they will respect you, and they might give your books a shot. But if not, who cares? You might make a new lifelong friend in the process.

Don’t compare your books to other bestsellers! Your book might be a cross between The Hunger Games and Lord of the Rings, but don’t say that, please! It’s arrogant and annoying and the few people that fall for it and read your book will hate you for it if they disagree with your bold statement. Just be you! Unique.

The advice from the first point stands here too. If you write well-edited books and giveaway lots of free copies, you’ll start to get noticed, even amongst the crowds.

Be patient! Those who are trying to make quick money will realize how hard and competitive the publishing industry really is and they’ll give up, but if you’re serious and you keep working at it, publishing more and more books, growing your readership slowly over time, you’ll outlast the others. I’m not talking days or months here, I’m talking years. You have to be in it for the long run, looking at success ten years down the road. Every step you take today is a step in the right direction.

4. Problem: Indies can’t handle bad reviews! This is an important and often overlooked stigma. Even I worry about reading Indie novels given to me by the authors, because what if I don’t like it? Can I give my honest feedback? Will I hurt their feelings? Will they get pissed off and write me nasty messages? Sometimes it’s easier just to read the bestsellers because the authors don’t give a crap whether I like their book—there are a million other people who do!

Solution: Don’t react or respond to reviews in a negative fashion whatsoever. Many Indies have gotten themselves into a lot of hot water that way, and once you get a reputation for “reviewer bashing” you’ll never recover. If a review is mean or you think it’s unfair, write it off as bad luck that the wrong person got ahold of your book. Never lash out. If you get a review that’s well-written, balanced, and constructive, read that review ten times over, learn from it, improve from it. Your readers will appreciate that more than you throwing a tantrum.

Wow, I fear I’ve run off the virtual page. If you’ve made it this far, I hope you found my thoughts on the challenges of being a self-published author, and some of my proposed solutions, helpful or at least interesting. I wish you all the best in your writing and publishing endeavors, and remember, never give up!

Happy Reading (and Writing)!

David Estes

David Estes

David Estes is the author of more than 20 science fiction and fantasy novels that have received hundreds of thousands of downloads worldwide, including The Moon Dwellers, Fire Country, Slip, Brew, and his new SciFi Pinocchio retelling, Strings. He lives in Hawaii with his inspiring Aussie wife, Adele, rambunctious son, Beau, and naughty cat, Bailey. When he’s not writing, you’ll likely find him at the beach swimming, snorkeling, or reading under an umbrella. You can get FOUR FREE books by signing up for his mailing list on his website: http://davidestesbooks.blogspot.com

Apr 12, 2016 | Posted by in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Tuesday Takeover: Become an Indie Author and Get Rich Quick! By David Estes (Proud to be an Indie!)