Fancy watching me screw up self-publishing?

Discussion in 'Self-Publishing' started by NigeTheHat, Feb 7, 2014.

  1. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 21, 2012
    Messages:
    6,631
    Likes Received:
    10,135
    Location:
    Yorkshire
    That's alright :) - I only deleted half my response...think I got a little carried away with the keyboard...

    no, no..I will send you a nice personal atb
     
  2. NigeTheHat

    NigeTheHat Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2008
    Messages:
    1,594
    Likes Received:
    1,776
    Location:
    London
    Update:

    The paperback is coming out on Wednesday. I'm trying a discount promotion for the first couple of days, and am in the process of running some Facebook ads to generate some interest in the offer. The ad looks like this:

    [​IMG]

    I figure just giving them one of the stories included is the easiest way to find people who like this kind of thing. I picked that one because it had a good response when I put it on the page, though I wonder now if it suffers a bit if you don't know the prompt was 'heavenly cheesecake and a one-eyed cat'. It's targeting people in the US, UK, Canada and Australia who have 'short story' or 'flash fiction' as an interest.

    The page it directs them to is here:

    http://penwright.leadpages.net/magpietales/

    That page was built with a service called LeadPages - it's a style I know works fairly well for more business-y type stuff, and hopefully we can find out whether or not it'll work for fiction. I wonder if it might be a bit too complicated, but I figured only one way to find out.

    I've also been posting stories on my Facebook feed, and some extra posts on the Facebook page to let the existing fans know about the deal.

    Anyhow - numbers breakdown next weekend, when hopefully I'll have managed to sell a couple of copies.

    Though it should be noted, when it comes to profit and loss I'm considering this a pretty big win at the moment. I doubt I'm ever making my money back on this project, but when I got the final proof through and I had the actual real book in my hands? Worth every. Fucking. Penny.
     
    Megalith, minstrel, Burlbird and 3 others like this.
  3. Ulramar

    Ulramar Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    May 6, 2014
    Messages:
    796
    Likes Received:
    243
    I gave your facebook page a like and I'm looking through your stories. I don't typically like flash fiction but these are good! If I can scrounge up some money I may order your book.
     
    NigeTheHat likes this.
  4. NigeTheHat

    NigeTheHat Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2008
    Messages:
    1,594
    Likes Received:
    1,776
    Location:
    London
    Thanks! All donations gratefully received :D
     
  5. aClem

    aClem Active Member

    Joined:
    Dec 8, 2013
    Messages:
    196
    Likes Received:
    53
    Location:
    San Jose, Costa Rica
    I had no idea what flash fiction was, but your example is a very good one. Very good. Good luck with sales.
     
    NigeTheHat likes this.
  6. Graphics solution

    Graphics solution New Member

    Joined:
    Jul 12, 2014
    Messages:
    16
    Likes Received:
    1
    Location:
    united states
    I will also like to know.Thanks.
     
  7. NigeTheHat

    NigeTheHat Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2008
    Messages:
    1,594
    Likes Received:
    1,776
    Location:
    London
    Somewhat later than planned update:

    The discount promotion didn't go quite as planned, but I'm still fairly pleased with the results. I didn't pay attention to the small print that said CreateSpace-published books (and discounts) may not appear on Amazon for a couple of days after you've put them live, so it ended up being a bit more drawn out than I wanted

    As well as the ad in the post above, I also posted about it on my FB timeline and twitter feed - not much for either, I think I did 2 FB posts and 1 tweet - and made two posts about the book on the 100 Word Stories FB page, as well as e-mailing everyone who signed up from the ad above and the list I'd already collected who follow the stories.

    I also attracted a rather nice (and unasked for) blog post here: http://kamagrowski.com/2014/08/02/small-and-shiny-things-magpie-tales-by-neil-murton/

    What I never thought to do was post about the book release on my own website. Current reasons for this largely come to: I'm an idiot.

    So, numbers.

    Total ad spend:

    $25 on the ad you can see above
    $10 boosting posts about the book on my FB page

    Total sign-ups on website:

    9. The conversion rate was about 15%, which is significantly lower than most business-related offers I've run.

    Total sales:

    10 - 2 from CreateSpace, 8 from the UK Amazon, giving total royalties of approximately $30

    Total costs so far (website, book cover, advertising the website on various platforms) come to about $542, though about $100 of that was the extra for a multi-site licence of the website theme, since I've also used it in other places than just the flash fiction website. $60 is author copies of Magpie Tales which I'm sending to Books On The Underground - they'll be doing a giveaway toward the end of August will I hope will help boost exposure.

    In monetary terms, I'm down about $480 on the project at the moment, but to be honest I'm quite encouraged by the numbers I've got. I'm not convinced you'll ever make a living self-publishing niche stuff like flash fiction, but if you have a series in a popular area, the one-off costs like the website become increasingly insignificant, as does the ad money. I'm unlikely to ever make a profit on my ads because the maximum possible revenue I can get from each customer is about $8, and then only if they buy the book at full price through CreateSpace. But if you have a lot of books available, so your possible revenue per customer is far higher, you can afford to spend far more on attracting them. I do think, though, that advertising the blog (or other social media) and turning your readers there into buyers is probably the way to go.
     
  8. aClem

    aClem Active Member

    Joined:
    Dec 8, 2013
    Messages:
    196
    Likes Received:
    53
    Location:
    San Jose, Costa Rica
    Have you considered doing, or having done, an audio book of your work? I did a home made one of a title that was selling a half dozen a month, maybe and I have sold over 60 of the audio versions just this month, not to mention the royalty (because the price is high) is higher. I would perhaps volunteer to do it except my California accent is probably not what you want and my Brit accents aren't totally genuine. I can give you advice on do it yourself, though.
     
    Lyrical and NigeTheHat like this.
  9. NigeTheHat

    NigeTheHat Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2008
    Messages:
    1,594
    Likes Received:
    1,776
    Location:
    London
    I haven't - that's a good idea. Do you list the audio books on Audible or somewhere else?

    I've got a bit audio recording equipment for a podcast I once did. If I try recording a couple of the stories and stick the links up here, could you let me know what you think of the quality?
     
  10. aClem

    aClem Active Member

    Joined:
    Dec 8, 2013
    Messages:
    196
    Likes Received:
    53
    Location:
    San Jose, Costa Rica
    I'd be glad to help and offer what advice I can. Yes, the audio book is sold by Audible: https://www.acx.com/

    Msg me if you want me to give a listen to a sample of what you're doing. My advice would be primarily from the sound standpoint and not as an oral interpretation critic.
     
  11. Martin Pollard

    Martin Pollard New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 25, 2015
    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    London
    Nigethehat - what software do you use to publish to kindle ? Tried with Word and got terrible results and took me an age to do table of contents!
    I've heard some good things about Magic Bullet software - anyone tried it? http://bit.ly/1DaHg1f
     
  12. Jillie415

    Jillie415 Member

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2015
    Messages:
    52
    Likes Received:
    25
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    I've been browsing through your posts and I find your information quite interesting. Do you mind me asking how it's been for you in the months since this last post? You don't have to give me monetary values, as I understand that is usually something personal. I just want to see if you think self-publishing was worth it?
     
  13. Robin Hawdon

    Robin Hawdon New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 23, 2015
    Messages:
    4
    Likes Received:
    1
    Location:
    UK and Australia
    Interesting experiment, Nigel. I can only tell you from my experience of self-publishing (and for that matter standard publishing) it's going to take as much work as writing the damned thing if you want to sell any copies. There are ZILLIONS of books out there all vying for attention - most of them rubbish. Learning the business of effective marketing, blogging, social media spreading, etc, etc, is a huge task, which you may not relish. On the other hand bad self published books have broken through the barriers and made the big time (i.e. 50 shades of something or other). When you have your finished product and if you are interested I can send you a collection of websites and articles which would help in the process. But I hope you have a lot of spare time!! As to cost - the book itself will probably cost you from £1000 to £3000 depending on format, etc, and the marketing as little as you like or as much as you can afford!
     
  14. NigeTheHat

    NigeTheHat Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2008
    Messages:
    1,594
    Likes Received:
    1,776
    Location:
    London
    I used Word to lay it out and converted everything in Calibre. It wasn't a particularly complicated layout, since every story was less than a page long, so it was just a matter of getting one right and then using styles to make sure they were all the same.

    Sure - so far I've made £74.26 in royalties, and that's just from sales that come in organically since I've not done much in the way of marketing. Weirdly pretty much everything I've paid for in the project has been in dollars, but I think with the current exchange rate it means I'm down about £290.

    As to was it worth it: oh yes. All of the yes. I'll probably never make the money back, but that was never the plan. Holding a book of my own in my hands, and knowing people I've never met have bought a copy (even if not very many of them) is fantastic.

    Post the links in this thread - I'm sure there's a lot of people here who'll find use for them. I'm certain I won't relish social media spreading and blogging; that kind of thing has never been in my skill-set. My attempts at marketing have been near-entirely based around buying ads. Fortunately I'm a stats geek, so acquiring data is a hobby in itself.

    I'm curious as to how you spend £1-3000 on just producing your book - I guess you got a load printed rather than going the POD route? And there'd be editing costs I didn't have thanks to the flash-fiction format. £1000 still seems like a lot, though.
     
    Jillie415 likes this.
  15. rincewind31

    rincewind31 Active Member

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2008
    Messages:
    196
    Likes Received:
    143
    The only costs you should incur producing your book are for a cover editing, and maybe a bit of advertising. £1-300 is just ludicrous!
     
  16. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 6, 2014
    Messages:
    10,462
    Likes Received:
    11,689
    If you're paying for pro editing, it can get really expensive really fast. I mean, if someone's doing a thorough job they're probably only doing about 10 pages an hour, so for a 350 page book that's a full week of work. How much should a professional editor make in a week? Enough that the £1000-3000 estimate seems pretty reasonable.
     
    rincewind31 likes this.
  17. NigeTheHat

    NigeTheHat Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2008
    Messages:
    1,594
    Likes Received:
    1,776
    Location:
    London
    rincewind31 and GingerCoffee like this.
  18. rincewind31

    rincewind31 Active Member

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2008
    Messages:
    196
    Likes Received:
    143
    Actually when you put it like that it does add up. I must be incredibly lucky in having a reasonably priced professional editor. Plus my only published work is a novella. I would imagine for a 70/80k piece it is going to mount up very fast.
     
  19. Lyrical

    Lyrical Frumious Bandersnatch

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2015
    Messages:
    385
    Likes Received:
    262
    I listen to more audiobooks than I have time to read a physical book, and I second this notion. An audiobook of flash fiction would be unique and fun to listen to. I don't have a kindle or any kind of e-reader, but I would love to buy your book on Audible if you decide to go that route.
     
  20. Rita M Gardner

    Rita M Gardner Member

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2016
    Messages:
    29
    Likes Received:
    8
    I am thoroughly excited to watch you learn and grow! Self publishing is a bit scary, but I am trying to get back into the swing of things and having others to learn from as well is wonderful.

    As far as printing is concerned, try your local print shops first!
     
  21. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2014
    Messages:
    4,406
    Likes Received:
    4,755
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Audio can be wonderfully convenient, but did you know Amazon will let you download the Kindle app free to your laptop or PC (and/or Mac, probably)? The app doesn't give you all the bells and whistles a Kindle device would, but it's still a great way to dip into the wide world of e-books.
     
  22. Ben James

    Ben James New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2018
    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    8
    It’s inspiring to hear that regardless of the money made, this project has been worthwhile for you. I hope it has continued to bring satisfaction since this post!

    Can I ask, was your novella self published? I’m interested as to how many people manage to get a publisher on board for novellas is all!
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice