Once again the incomparable Wade Finnegan will be hosting. If you can’t understand him, it’s because your audio sucks–just kidding. đ Wade has a monster cold and is losing his voice. Don’t be surprised if we swap hosts tonight.
We start our first show of 2014 with some breaking news from 2013. During a recent Amazon press release it was announced that 150 KDP authors had sold over 100,000 copies of a single title.
The arrival of 2014 brought in a flurry of industry predictions. We’ll be covering these, as well as doing some predictions of our own. đ You can find the juicier predictions below. đ
Digital Book World’s 2014 Predictions
Hugh Howey’s response to all the predictions and then he throws out some of his own
Joe Konrath’s predictions
Author Media Room’s Predictions
In other news during the past two weeks
After this past Christmas season half of the people in England are using tablets
Ebook services are being used to document reader behavior-
From the article—âScribd is just beginning to analyze the data from its subscribers. Some general insights: The longer a mystery novel is, the more likely readers are to jump to the end to see who done it. People are more likely to finish biographies than business titles, but a chapter of a yoga book is all they need. They speed through romances faster than religious titles, and erotica fastest of all.
At Oyster, a top book is âWhat Women Want,â promoted as a work that âbrings you inside a womanâs head so you can learn how to blow her mind.â Everyone who starts it finishes it. On the other hand, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.âs âThe Cycles of American Historyâ blows no minds: fewer than 1 percent of the readers who start it get to the end.
Oyster data shows that readers are 25 percent more likely to finish books that are broken up into shorter chapters. That is an inevitable consequence of people reading in short bursts.â
Author Kristen Lamb blogged about the five mistakes killing self-published authors
Livia Blackburne did a comparison between her debut indie title and her debut traditional title. She covered everything from editing to marketing.
An interesting experiment and analysis of the serial format–including sales comparisons and marketing by Ed Robertson
And now, to INSPIRE everyone as we head into 2014 we are posting a list of great Kindleboard success stories from 2013!
SM Reine
Daniel Arenson
Elle Casey
Kyle West
VJ Chambers
Here’s a list of self-published authors, their sales figures and the genres in which they write. Interesting reading.
Evening SPRT’rs
Hello everyone! Thanks for joining us.
Good evening
Greetings.
BuddyGott Hey Buddy
keithallenauthor BuddyGott What’s up, Keith?
BuddyGott keithallenauthor Living the dream mostly. đ
No Carl? That cuts most of my material.
No Carl? Â But I only come here to listen to Carl talk about how great he is in the third person.
keithallenauthoryou and me both.
Howdy.
wassup all!
billdowis Bill!
RemarkableReadsFine. Make me feel good.
RemarkableReads And cricket. Which is about all his G+ posts have been about lately
Crissy loves The Three Stooges? Further proof that she may be The Perfect Woman.
Greetings, y’all.
Sean Platt is Dave’s perfect woman.
gregorylynnHoly crap! Greg’s here. A true sign of the impending apocalypse.
Just saying hi!Â
…gotta run. Meeting my wife at the gym.
Later!
jlward RemarkableReads Ward to the wise.  You’re awesome too.
jlward gregorylynn Yes, I am come to bring death and destruction upon the world.
RolandDenzelYou’re choosing your wife over us?! I’m hurt.
Crissy rocks, by the way.
This show gets on topic way faster than Story Telling Podcast.
For the record, I only read the first episode of Space Shuttle, and it was beyond terrible.
But then, I don’t think anything any of the SPP guys has written really did it for me.
Except WPR of course, and so far, Writer Dad.
Self Publishing Podcast needs a woman co-host.
In other news, Crissy will start co-hosting Buddy’s Writing Show next week too.
The story telling podcast could have used more Dave last night
Imagine a teen reader of Realmkeepers looking up Hit Girls and Non Zombie
This last ep of Better Off Undave was so damn funny. Best ever possibly.
keithallenauthor It was by far the funniest episode ever. I laughed so hard I passed out.
gregorylynn keithallenauthor I had to stop listening to it at work…people were staring.
Hugh Howey posted this on kboards… Talks about how self publishing is now as big or bigger than the major tradsÂ
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygreenfield/2013/12/30/top-five-ebook-publishers-in-2013/?utm_source=followingimmediate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20131230
That’s totally a serial killer scarf
keithallenauthor You’re saying Dr Who is a serial killer?
crissymoss keithallenauthor clearly
keithallenauthorcrissymossThat’s why he keeps changing his identity all the time.
Where my daughter lives in ND, it was 35 below actual temp, 74 below windchill.
maryeihlaUm, yeah, not gonna move there.
maryeihla wow our -16 actual temperature seems so wimpy now.
maryeihla I lived in ND for a while… 30 miles from the boarder… it gets COLD there!
MAN. I was trying to comment on YouTube. I’m an idiot. đ
JayChastain COME ON
crissymoss maryeihla Anywhere near Bottineau? That’s where my husband grew up.
JayChastainYou’re not an idiot. Most hangouts do handle comments that way. We got tired of the lag and adopted the LiveFyre plugin which works great.
jlward JayChastain Yeah…this works much better than youtube comments.
jlward JayChastain LOL Right on man.
billdowis jlward JayChastain Fo Sho
billdowis jlward JayChastain Seems like it so far!
Dave…Is SPP on tomorrow?
JayChastain I was with you because I couldn’t get Livefyre to work at first.
maryeihla JayChastain Well we were the cool kids still on YouTube lol.
keithallenauthor JayChastain I know I know. I’m ashamed. I blame the Jameson.
I think Traditional will change, but it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Â Plus it seems like a good longevity plan is to go Hybrid as an author
More paper only deals to come. Â I think of it as just another channel to leverage
I think the BEST indie editing (besides actually paying a pro), is to have as many real writers help you. I have one I pay since she deals with my volume of work the most, and then I have several writers and readers go over after deep edits. Works really well, I think.
I still read paper in some cases.
billdowis ME TOO. If I love the book, I’ll buy paper.
I hope print books remain popular forever because I really, really hate trees.
keithallenauthor IDK. Seems like suicide.
BuddyGott Right? They’re so cocky.
keithallenauthor BuddyGott Yeah. All bark and no bite.
I’ve been been a freelance editor for over 30 years, but only non-fiction. Any ideas on how I can get into fiction editing?
“I have no vested interest in your stupid returns story.”
–Dave
JayChastainFunny thing is that I will pay more for a trade paperback instead of mass market. If only mass market available I may go toward ebook. Depending on the book though.
If Kindle would open its serial model to Indies, serials would rise again.
I think more authors will continue to write and sell. The corporate author will die off eventually. Maybe…….Fuck it.
billdowis Yep need that delivery/pricing system to increase viability
Like the collectives idea!
ooooh. A three way story. đ
maryeihla He’s got 4 or 5 stories already from several of us. Hopefully he gets it edited fairly soon.
IDk. I’m still a fan of the low priced ebook. I think Konrath’s idea of having adds on free ebooks will work and build careers. Media wants to be free.
JayChastain Like an apps model? Purchase for no adds?
Visibility isn’t an issue if you are unique. I think we will lose people trying to make money writing because it’s hard, and thus  make the market stable and more predictable.
These podcasts reek of incest. đ
Thanks for including Buddy’s Writing Show there, Crissy! Â Geez…
You know what we need?
More podcasts about books.
gregorylynnYou should start one.
But now you cant say shut the fuck up on STP.
keithallenauthor JayChastain More like the YouTube Model. I make money with YT’s ads playing on my videos. 1,000 youtube users make 6 figures off of free content with ads. It’s the way of the future. Books too.
Nothing wrong with incest. Incest is best.
jlward gregorylynn I want to, but I don’t want to do it alone and I have no friends.
jlward gregorylynn You fucking liar.
Jay and Dave need to podcast about their weight loss competition.
Review just the Kindle Samples.
That’s not true. Dave gets upset at people when they don’t meet his high standards. I get upset when they don’t meet my incredibly low standards.
billdowis FUCK YEAH WE DO! I would love that.
JayChastain billdowis I’d watch that.
They are brutally honest about the book reviews. Especially when getting to spoilers.
keithallenauthor JayChastain billdowis THE #LoseItAll Challenge is taking over.
On the subject of losing weight with Dave and Trish, wait until you see the punishments…. I foresee Dave singing ROAR by Katy Perry in the future.
JayChastain Hmm….
I always know when Dave is masturbating….
JayChastain Because you’re helping?
I think it’s cool to know how readers read. It’s like… reader hacking,
JayChastain Dave the Sex Slave?
keithallenauthor JayChastain well… that goes without question.
JayChastain When he’s breathing?
Actually, I now have this terrible image in my head of Dave starring in a film version of Confederacy of Dunces.
gregorylynn JayChastain EMBRACE THE IMAGES
maryeihla JayChastain He is my sex slave…but he’s still shy
JayChastain gregorylynn I really really don’t want to.
Once you go David W Wright, you can’t go wrong
We love you, Dave!
maryeihlasaid the plantation owner to the slave.
maryeihlaMan, people who only read that comment and don’t watch the show are going to have no idea what I’m talking about.
MY BOOKS ARE ALWAYS READy
jlward maryeihla And imagine what they’ll think!
FREE works to get a book wedged in the system, I think…. If it just sits there….it won’t sell. It needs SOMETHING.
JayChastain Only works if you market. I wasn’t able to get it to work for me.
crissymoss JayChastain did you get any sales after the promo at all?
JayChastain crissymoss Just a couple. I’m really horrible at marketing. I have no idea what I’m doing. So I just write more books.
Hello all
David AnsonHi David.
David Anson hi
crissymoss JayChastain That’s what I mean. You had some buys. That’s good. I doubt you would have had any if you didn’t do a free promo….though you have to make sure you can keep that reader once you get them to buy.
Damn, I almost missed the whole thing đ
David Anson Yo!
JayChastain It works when you’re in the right category
Bear romance Dave?
JayChastain crissymoss Maybe I didn’t do it at the right time.
RemarkableReads JayChastain Eh. yes. But it’s more about getting into the system, not about big sales. I need to do a video or blog about this…
crissymoss JayChastain POSSIBLE. But IDK. I don’t think it works to sell a lot of books. I think it works to get you into the system to get eyes on your book…Email me what you did, if you want and I’ll give my two cents?
I lucked out Anson Maddocks is doing my covers. He also wants to look at doing a graphic novel of one of them
JayChastain crissymoss I don’t know your email.
Guns are the best. ‘Merica
crissymoss JayChastain jacob.chastainyahoo.com đ
JayChastain RemarkableReads It also depends on what you consider to be good sales. Â
It also helped build my mailing list.
RemarkableReads JayChastain Exactly. There are many less obvious great reasons to run a free promo.
crissymossI’m going to be in your town in Feb or March
Comment here if you want in to the after party
JayChastain RemarkableReads permafree built my entire audience for me
jlward I’m in.  kevinmichael3gmail.com
RemarkableReads JayChastain Awesome. Glad it worked!
Feel better, Wade!
RemarkableReads jlward I’m in.
Thanks Mary
David Anson crissymoss It’s rainy here đ
keithallenauthorBuddyGott WAsn’t that supposed to be corky?? đ
BuddyGottkeithallenauthor LOL, you two have your own comedy routine going on here. I think it’s more entertaining than the show.
JayChastain Yeah, I don’t think you are going to see the low priced ebooks go away anytime soon. They are a viable way to build discovery. And in most surveys readers say they are more likely to try a new to them author at a free or very cheap price. Authors they already love, and are auto buys- they can charge much highers.
keithallenauthorJayChastainbilldowis hahahhahha You’d be on that podcast.
JayChastain As long as it’s Dave you foresee singing and NOT me, I’m good with that. đ Everybody else should be even better with that. đ
Trish McCallan JayChastain Exactly. Higher ebooks are designed for a certain audience in mind, which is fine, but in most cases, I think the lower price is more valuable for author AND readers, which is most important.
Trish McCallan JayChastain HAHA. Well, I think me and you will lead the race so NATURALLY, he will be the one suffering in the punishments. đ
JayChastaincrissymoss Yeah, the trick is getting the reader into the next book. Depending on the conversion rate that can be anywhere from 2% to 20% of the free readers go onto book two. But it can slowly hook an audience. One of the things SM Reine said in her post I linked to below was that she let half of her books go perma free- and there was a definate snowball effect as the readers finished the free book and started to pay for the sequel. It can be very effective, if it’s used right.
JayChastainTrish McCallan +1trillion We will destroy Dave.
keithallenauthor RemarkableReads That’s a lie. Probably like 20% of them are cricket related. Cricket finishes up after summer. A few more weeks and it quiets down. Stop moaning, you might learn something about a real sport.
jlward RemarkableReads Carl will return next week. Which will be awesome.
Trish McCallan JayChastain crissymoss Writing more books wont do you any good if you can’t teach people about the ones you have already written. No matter what anyone claims, they don’t sell shit without getting noticed. That takes marketing more often than not.
writerwade Hope you feel better buddy.
Space Shuttle? That hasn’t died yet?