re: Publishing, anyone?

More&Les, tell me about the book company that is doing all that work for you for $7k. Do you have a link? It sounds like a vanity press.

You got to sell a lot of books to make up that $7k. Marketing is a bitch.

Friend,

No one should pay a dime to publish these days. Your money would be better used advertising on TD and FB. TD naturally would be your target audience, and FB has some of the most complex algorithms for advertising so I'm sure they would get your target audience.

Publish the book yourself on Amazon, and do local advertising. Don't pay these money suckers to do data entry and advertising.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

I would look into self publishing and as you’ve seen we have a couple poster writers here. Think LSU Zombie has had some work published as well but it may be more graphic novel type stuff.

If you wanna test the outside world look for a copy of the literary marketplace on amazon or ebay.

we need and IM feature on here...

I’ve got a short story collection im working on.

I think that's the golden question. Finding an audience is so difficult because it takes spending some money on AMS ads and Facebook Ads to get the book in front of potential readers. At least that seems to be the consensus among successful indie authors.

One of the best things you can do as an author and business person is write more books. Indie authors do better when they have more content for readers to buy. I know many writers who write three or more books before releasing them with a strategy - one a month or every few weeks - hoping to build buzz. Series books do well. I have only six books in indie. I'm putting more in because one of my publishers reverted rights back to me so I'm actively working on learning more about things like creating effective Facebook ads and marketing on AMS (which seems easy but is not). I would suggest you write more books, come up with a marketing strategy. If you're writing a series, you could consider making your first book a loss leader (free or inexpensive) in order to hook readers and sell through to the other books in your series. If you can't write full-length books, novellas and even shorts can work in your favor. Readers are greedy and love new content so many successful indie authors try to give something every 3-4 months. If they are stand alone, I would suggest choosing a price range from $3.99-$5.99. Are you thinking about going wide or doing KDP (Kindle Unlimited)?

I'm a hybrid author because I still write for a publisher while I dabble in indie. But many of my friends who wrote for smaller publishers or who were mid-listers have gone completely indie and I don't think you could talk them out of giving up their books to a publisher again.

If you're on FB, I would recommend searching for Author Support Network - a private group started by Marie Force. It's a great resource for new writers who are considering indie.

You are most welcome. I’m always happy to chat with fellow writers and share what I know.

I use a computer. For me, it’s easier because that’s how publishers expect my manuscript to be delivered. And if you’re interested in indie publishing, you need to present a document that can be edited.

On that note, indie authors need to pay an editor to at the very least do copy edits. Nothing sinks the start of a career like a badly edited book.

You’ve got a good deal then. I pay a lot more for my editor. I’m a former English teacher and I still get confused on compound words and numbers. And I’ve likely gotten lazy with my grammar. I’m sure you’ve found as I have that your knowledge of craft and technique increases with each book. I get developmental edits on my traditional publishing books, but I don’t on my indie ones. But I have to have a copy editor. I wish mine could be paid in beers and burgers. That would be awesome ??

I think this is typical for a lot of readers. I write romance and women’s fiction, and my series sells really well and readers always ask for me for “more, please.” Romance readers (and fantasy readers) often wait until there is a series at the ready to read at one time. That’s what good indie writers understand. Writing follow up books is super important.