Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Welcome to another fun and fact filled episode of the Self-Publishing Roundtable. The weekly book publishing news show. For indie authors, by indie authors.
We are starting off with a guest this week. The super awesome, Brenna Aubrey.
You may remember we talked about Brenna and her story, last week.
She was offered a big traditional publishing deal and turned it down to take her books independent.
Brenna has been featured by the likes of Chuck Wendig and Hugh Howey on their blogs, due to her interesting story and success.
While we were talking about her last week, Brenna showed up in the comments, after getting a ping back from our associated blog post.
After the show we asked if she would like to come on to Hangout after-party to talk to people and answer any questions anyone might have had. She accepted.
We had so much fun chatting with her that we asked her to come back this week live on the show, and she has agreed. We’ll be interviewing Brenna to start and she has agreed to stick around to guest host and give you her opinion on the weekly news stories.
Speaking of which… here’s the stories for the week…
| When Konrath met Steve | shared by Trish |
No, this is not the long awaited sequel to when Harry Met Sally. This story relates to the question and answer session this week between Joe Konrath and Kensington CEO, Steven Zacharius.
Steve has been everywhere recently, showing up in comments on Passive Voice, Laura Kaye’s blog and now here. The post itself is interesting but the comments have been where the action is. Brenna (our guest co-host) has been following closely, so will have a lot to share. Trish and I even found ourselves in a Twitter conversation with Steve this week.
| Revered Author Goes Indie | shared by Trish |
At the grand age of 75, Laurence Block has published the latest book in his Bernie Rhodenbarr mystery series, independently. This isn’t a backlist title. It’s a brand new release.
| Dwindling Print Sales? | shared by Trish |
We will chat about the fantastic post by Courtney Mlian. It’s not just because of surging ebook sales or fewer bookstores either. There is an interesting look at the traditional romance industry as a whole. Including return rates. She also posted her royalties which has some interesting data to look at it.
| Back of the Book Promo | shared by Trish |
Thread over on the Kindle Boards where a guy is setting up a promo where authors can pay to put a sample in the back of other author’s books. The idea is for the more successful authors to make a bit of extra cash AND help their fellow Indie authors. Lots of discussion on this one, which has proved to be very interesting.
| A BookBub rival? | shared by Trish |
This guy posted on Kboards about a new Bookbubs type promo he is planning on launching. According to him prices would be based on profit, like the ENT bargin books bin and the bill wouldn’t be due until your royalty payment comes in. This is what he said in the introduction to the thread. “Distribution channels will be via email list and syndication through my very popular Kindle Android apps. Email list will hit 100,000 subscribers by end March, and app users will have passed 1,000,000 by then. It is at this point that I aim to launch the service.”
| 28% of American’s e-read | shared by Trish |
The numbers are up several percent from last year.
| New Amazon Imprint | shared by Crissy
Amazon have launched yet another imprint to their ever growing catalogue. It’s called Waterfall and will feature Christian fiction.
| Real Men Wear Tights | shared by Carl |
The ongoing war against me continued this week. A few episodes ago I went on a rant about the trend of people no longer wearing pants. Just walking around casually in nothing but tights and tops. No pants… Melissa Donovan one of our valued viewers had been leading the charge. This week Mary Ihla got in the act, striking at me with this story about ‘meggings’ where men are donning tights. I have a response to all this coming, in the form of a video. Hopefully I can end this trend and war once and for all.
| It’s Showtime |
That’s all for this week given the interview with Brenna. We look forward to seeing you live in a few hours.
Looking forward to having BrennaAubrey on and hearing her opinion on the news!
I’m looking forward to this one a lot. Brenna is awesome. Plus, you’re doing a story on Lawrence Block, my favorite writer ever. P.S. – His new book, The Burglar Who Counted The Spoons, is great!
BuddyGott Your favorite writer, other than me. Right?
Carl Sinclair BuddyGott Uh…uh…uh….
BuddyGott The Lawrence Block announcement was unexpected and very cool. I mean the guy is 75 and willing to forsake his traditional publisher for an Indie career. One of the standard arguments from pro-traditional authors and editors has always been “if Indie publishing is so good, why aren’t the big name authors doing it?” My response is, “Huh, they are.” Or at least they are starting to.
BuddyGott How did you get that little featured tag next to your name? Sexual favor for Carl Sinclair ??
If you have questions for brennaaubrey post them here.
writerwade BuddyGott Carl Sinclair No sexual favors were committed. I imagine I just hold a special place in his heart.
BuddyGott writerwade Carl Sinclair I only just became aware of it. I featured Buddy due to his awesomeness. Now I’m featuring the Brenna Question one as it’s probably more relevant.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1….
Hi all!
Budmeister in the house!
Hi Brenna. Congrats and thanks for the earlier email.
jakonrath Hey Joe! Welcome to the mad house of comments.
Carl Sinclair jakonrath Just pretend I’m not here. 🙂
Excited to be here for the live show!
Stacy Claflin hey Stacy!
jakonrath Carl Sinclair We’er good at that 😉
Stacy Claflin Hi Stacy!
Carl Sinclair Hi Carl!
Brenna, your agent can still sell movie, foreign, and audio rights. If she won’t, mine would be happy to. Email me again.
YAY! Brenna! I’m so excited and proud of you! xo
yo
I love hearing stories like Brenna’s and I think it’s awesome how well she’s been doing. Congrats to you, Brenna!
I have a proposal out with a publisher now, and I’m terrified that their terms are going to blow. All I’ve heard, so far is the loooooooong timeline until publishing, and when I asked why so long, they didn’t have a good answer
What’s next for you, Brenna? 🙂
RolandDenzel Don’t be terrified. If it blows, tell them it blows, and do it yourself. That is the freedom that indie publishing gives you
crissymoss RolandDenzel absolutely, but a huge part of me WANTS it not to blow, just so I can have a traditional deal under my belt. 🙂
RolandDenzel I completely understand. Traditional use to be “THEE” way to go. I use to feel the same way.
gotta run! Great show so far. I’ll definitely listen later.
…you know, like when this goes up on ITUNES! 😉
Doctor Who reference! Brenna gets cooler with each passing minute! 🙂
RolandDenzel Sadly, it’s not on iunes.
Greetings.
sryeager Steve! Hello, old friend.
Only 25 minutes late to the party tonight.
any questions guys?
I’m just waking up, the only question I have right now is why do I work nights?
Brenna, why not self-publish the historical? Ebooks are forever, but if you postpone forever for a month, or a year, that’s a month (or year) you don’t get paid for your work.
You want forever to start as soon as possible.
If you’re concerned that your new fans might not crossover, do another pen name. I’ve had five pen names.
What’s your favorite way (and most effective in your opinion) to communicate with your readers- facebook or twitter or blogging?
Carl Sinclair…0, -1, -2, -3, -4, -5
marquita valentine Have a newsletter sign-up on your website and blog.
jakonrath marquita valentine and put links to it on FB, G+, Twitter etc
jakonrath Thanks. 🙂
Carl Sinclair google plus makes my head hurt, lol. jakonrath
It’s not Harry Met Sally? Really? You should see Steve fake an orgasm…
I’ve dealt with many publishers, and most of NY publishing is like Steve. It’s called Existence Bias. Because they always existed, they believe they always will exist. Like Kodak.
Any anyone wants an invite to the afterparty hangout to chat with us, reply here as usual.
Carl Sinclair I have half an hour, Carl. I can join you guys.
Carl Sinclair Sounds fun!
jakonrath Carl Sinclair I’ll send them out in a minute or two.
marquita valentine Carl Sinclair I just need your email or G+
Carl Sinclair marquita valentine marquita.valentine@yahoo.com
Okay the invites have gone out.
jakonrath Carl Sinclair Sent to your G+ I think Joe.
Thanks everyone for watching. And thank you @brennaaubrey for being our guest. You rock!
Carl Sinclair jakonrath I’m not seeing anything…
Carl Sinclair Wish I could. Maybe next time. Glad I could catch the show live!
jakonrath Carl Sinclair do you have a gmail email by any chance?
jakonrath Carl Sinclair If you click on the hangout button on the right of G+ it should have shown up there.
Carl Sinclair I would, but my co-workers would think I am even more crazy than they do now. Besides, then they would realize I’m not really working right now.
Liam Kingman Carl Sinclair haha fair enough.
crissymoss RolandDenzel I know. I was throwing out a jab.
I wish it was either in itunes or an mp3 to download.
Major props to Brenna for putting up with us and answering all our questions. 🙂
Additional major props to Brenna for agreeing to guest host with us again sometime in Feb to update her sales/income. 🙂
Fun show as always, guys. It was great to hear Brenna’s story.
Sorry, what is the difference of non-compete clauses from a trad
publisher and what Amazon seems to require? Or is Amazon only requiring
that for ‘particular’ things?
Could Brenna publish her book on Amazon and work on and publish another book on Amazon?
I’m
a little confused by what Amazon DOES and does not do. Even when I read
their terms, I get confused. Despite their reach, I’m still not happy
with publishing on Amazon. Opinions?
Nice format of show. I recently subscribed to the youtube channel where I could not post this comment for some reason.
Thank you.
Heather Lovatt
wordwan
wordwan Hey Heather. An important thing to remember is that Amazon is not a publisher. It is a bookstore. They require no non-compete type of agreements unless you willingly participate in the KDP select program, which is a way to get extra promotional benefits for the book in exchange for making it exclusive to Amazon for 90 days. I did not enroll in the KDP select program. Other than that, Amazon does not act as a publisher unless you sign with one of their imprints, which do act like standard publishers.
Trish McCallan haha “putting up with you.” You guys are too funny. I re-watched the video and realized I giggle like a goon when I’m nervous. Ugh!!!!
jakonrath thanks for THAT mental image LOL!
I think your next roundtable episode should feature a “discussing” between jakonrath and Steven Zacharius (*snickering*)
@BrennaAubrey
Ah.. okay. So stay away from Kindle Desktop publishing–which means, don’t do their freebie book thing.
Are you gonna ever do a freebie book thing on Amazon? That comment relates to the following: What bothered me with that when I first came to look at Amazon was that the ‘freebie’ is cited (or it was when I was looking at Amazon) as a sale (which it’s not; it’s a freebie) and it’s worked into the rankings as if it were.
And, to me, there’s a whole group of people that are about freebies, not about loyalty as fans. If we end up with all these ‘mock’ rankings, in my view. we have no real indicator of what our fanbase is. Just my view.
I haven’t looked at Amazon since early last year. Maybe some systems have changed, but it seemed to me a lot of people weren’t LOOKING at their ebook publishing business in the long term; which YOU seem to be doing. Good on you. *grin*
I’m been looking at Wattpad. Do you use it? I bet your book would promote well there. The crowd is a little uneven but… lots of readers!
And again: that ‘exclusive with Amazon’ idea is STRICTLY to do with particular imprint contracts. Okay.
I wasn’t even thinking too hard about non compete with trad publishers til I read your posts on this and it clicked over in my head.
I realize trads aren’t going away; and I like the idea I see of people going to trads for PAPERback imprints (versus ebooks) but I find Amazon unsettling, is all. I seemed to find a lot of ‘complainers about Amazon’ when I looked at it.
You know?
Thanks. Success to you.
Heather
wordwan
wordwan Hey Heather,
Brenna is right. KDP select (the free promotional tool) had a lot of power for a while. Plenty of people used that power to launch their careers by solid free programs. Free did used to give you help in the paid rankings following that promotion. That is no longer the case. Amazon has moved about as far away from free as you can get. They put no weight into it. While the odd person still has some success, for the most part, it won’t help your book anymore.
The strongest promotion at the moment is BookBub. Most people see the most gain and movement on their books (and rankings) with a strong promotion around BookBub at 99c. I have constantly seen books get launched low in the store, 1000 and below, sometimes even in the top 100 if they do it right.
You are probably better off not putting all of your eggs in one basket anymore. Get your book up on Kobo, B&N, Apple, Smashwords and work your promotion across the board. That way you are building readers on all of the platform.
The only people who have to really deal with clauses like you are talking about at those signed with Amazon imprints such as 47 North (sci fi/ fantasy/ horror) T Mercer (Mystery) and Montlake (Romance) Trish could probably talk to you more about that as she is signed with Montlake for her Forged in Fire series.
Hope that adds to Brenna’s comments and helps.
Carl
BrennaAubrey jakonrath I think that would be the best show ever.
RolandDenzel crissymoss There are a couple of problems with that. The show’s content is not particularly useful in the long term. At least not most episodes. We are covering current news stories and reactions. It’s not like a Rocking Self-Publishing or SPP where they are discussing subjects that don’t age out.
How many news shows do you record and go watch back a week, month, or year later? That is essentially what we would do be doing by having an iTunes version.
I guess we could limit it by only having reasonably recent versions available.
The other is – production time. I simply haven’t had the time to do it. Also, most of us don’t have equipment that is high quality enough for audio only. The iTunes podcast requirements for people is much higher than YouTube. Everyone would need to upgrade to quality microphone and set ups. I have toyed with it. I do have an account to host it (due to another project I’ve been developing) but I just haven’t seen the benefit in the time won.
The show has done well considering how long it’s been going. It has had little periods of insta growth (when we switched formats at episode 10, Dave joining, Trish joining, Brenna coming on and us taking on more indie authors for interviews on their part in the news) but overall, we are still a fairly new show.
If it got to the point where the pros were smashing down my door, I would do it. I still may. But that is why there is no audio only available on iTunes at the moment.
Plus I want people looking at my face.
BrennaAubreyjakonrath LOL, I think we should invite Joe Konrath, Barry Eisler, Hugh Howey, Steve Zackarius,.Agent David Gernert, and Trident’s Chairman Robert Gottlieb. We’d title it The Clash of the Titans. 🙂
Maybe we should send out invites??? O-O
wordwan Heather,
It sounds like you’re misunderstanding some things.
KDP is Kindle Direct Publishing’s self-publishing arm. Everyone uploads to KDP. This is how you sell your books on Amazon.
KDP Select is beneath the umbrella of Kindle direct Publishing. An author does not have to enroll in this. But if they do they enjoy certain perks that can impact a book’s visibility. Like the five free days Select books are allowed to be put to free every three months, or the fact the book is enrolled in the Prime Lending Library and the author gets paid each time the book is borrowed by a prime member, or the new countdown deal where books are allowed to be discounted, yet the book’s royalty rate remains the same. If a book is entered in select, they can not distribute the book elsewhere for those three months, but in exchange for this exclusivity they can take advantage of these “perks.”
As for free ranking. The Amazon store is broken into two distinct ranking systems. The free books store, with the free books rank and the paid store, with the paid books’ rank. Free books are not included in the paid rank. So a books free downloads do not affect it’s Kindle store rank.
The only thing free downloads affect anymore are the popularity lists placements, and this is completely different than the kindle store ranks. It used to be a percentage of free downloads would boost a book’s placement on the popularity list- but there is very little boost from a free run anymore.
Also- the reason behind free runs or perma free books IS a long term marketing strategy. The most successful Indie authors around use free books to bring new readers into their marketing funnels. In a recent reader survey 80% of the respondents said that they had found their latest MUST BUY authors by picking up a free book of theirs. They loved the free book so much they bought every other book by that author. Many of the most successful Indie authors around credit their free books with their explosion of sales.
As for Wattpad. I have used Wattpad. And while i had a great sized fan base over there, very few of them actually bought the book. Wattpad does not have a good transfer rate to paid sales. For most authors they’d don’t get any sales off their Wattpad stories.
BrennaAubreyTrish McCallanYou didn’t come off as nervous, so kudos. LOL No one else noticed it. 🙂
Trish McCallan wordwan On Wattpad – the audience, for the most part, seems to be teenage to early twenty females and older females. Mostly reading YA and Romance.
As Trish said, I’ve never heard of anyone attributing any following there (even the people with millions of reads) to paid book sales. It’s just a free source and that is the expectation. Even 99c is too much.
The only thing I’ve really heard people getting from Wattpad is an agent or interest for film rights for their stories. If that appeals to you, then go for it. Just don’t expect to make any paid sales for the work.
That being said the visibility may be useful in other ways, such as starting a word of mouth-a-thon on Goodreads for you. So indirectly it might help.
Trish McCallan BrennaAubrey jakonrath Let’s do it.
Great show.
Darren Wearmouth Glad you liked it Darren. Looking forward to seeing you Thursday night in the live comments. That’s when it really gets fun! : )
Carl Sinclair I’ll be there!
Carl SinclairRolandDenzelcrissymoss
I realize you were responding to someone’s request for an i-tunes version and you mentioned the content not being particularly useful in the long term and I thought I might comment, being new to your show.
What I PARTICULARLY liked about this programme–and I attempted to connect to all the hosts of this show as a result of this is:
everyone is giving a very informed opinion about subjects that, sometime, I only hear, ‘say’ Hugh Howey’s version on it. And I LIKE Hugh Howey but does everyone understand the context from which he or Amazon or anyone speaks? No, we assume what they say is absolute; and sometimes, it’s not.
But someone HERE, for example, put’s HUGH HOWEY’S comment in context for me. Because they’re plugging away at this industry too and they’ve seen a few things.
Which, for all the blogs or website posts I’ve read, around the web, is SO much more important than you can imagine.
SO much more. *grin*
So keep on doing what you do. Maybe, I got lucky with the few video posts I watched, I dunno, but I find it much more helpful than yet another ‘how-to’ ebook on Amazon or i-tunes (which, to me, always seems more about promoting the writer than anything. *grin*)
CONTEXT. Getting some of the data we are constantly given from these other places and people without the context–particular, when the speakers, in question, do NOT seem to question the very things that _I_ seem to question, almost immediately. *grin*
Thank you.
Heather, who maybe needs more ‘analysis’ news than pop culture, everything’s okay, go consume news. *grin*
wordwan Carl Sinclair RolandDenzel crissymoss Hey Heather,
Thanks for the kind words. We have worked really hard to put together a weekly show that is relevant and useful to all indies, especially those starting out. When I first starting to put my nose in, It was hard to get all of the information, then get varied opinions on what it meant. We don’t self promo here. We are just a group of people trying to understand and report on the news that matters, for indie authors.
The points you are raised are exactly what I hope people get from the show. I like Hugh and respect what he has done. His advice however is not all that useful for people starting out in today’s market, because he is Hugh Howey. It is a tough world and people need to be able to target things that are working and get them done. The news can share that. Having on people like BrennaAubrey or Darren Wearmouth is even more useful, because they are new indies starting out and making waves and having success. That is what people need to see. Hugh is a fantastic case, but he should not be the goal for most because he cannot be replicated. The hard work of people like Brenna and Darren can be.
We aren’t going to change. IN fact we are going to be bringing even more content we think is useful. From more interviews with relevant folk to some other stats and items we are putting together behind the scenes.
We have a great mix of hosts at various stages of their indie career, with varied opinions and outlooks. I think it gives us a balanced and valid look at the news that matters.
Thanks for watching. Hope to see you Thursday night in the live comments!
Best
Carl
Trish McCallanwordwan
Ya see? Ya see? Damn, yer good.
I went to Amazon in, hm, January, last year. I was like Alice in Wonderland, meeting all levels of people with all levels of ideas of what Amazon was about and what it had done for them. Or NOT done for them, as was more the case.
As an example, I met this one ‘new hot arriving’ writer, who was publishing blogs on his adventures at Amazon; he was doing it, essentially, to promote himself and I can’t fault anyone on that.
He, in particular, got me on to this supposed idea that his Kindle Select perk, as you mention (and thank you for delineating that point too) was making his paid book sales rise in the ranks. He had entered the book in the freebie days and it was rising, (like a bullet) up the paid rankings.
(Side note: Of course it was–IT WAS FREE. And if we could all stay in business by being free, we’d do it, now wouldn’t we? *grin*)
Or so he said. Emphasis: A freebie book ‘sold’ was being counted as a paid book.
I was not amused. I didn’t come to Amazon to do freebies so people could use my metadata to make their website look useful to potential investors. Or starry eyed writers, eager to achieve any level of fame by any means available.
Misconception number one: realigned. *grin* Thank you.
I don’t mind freebies. In fact, I think that the ‘current 24 million userbase’ (I just watched this in a vid) Wattpad could be better used somehow to ‘offer’ people freebie content to get them interested in what you do as a paid writer. But that’s for another day; as you say, something about Wattpad isn’t working in that way. (Though, depending on the situation, in my experience, I feel they tend to flip back and forth on this point. This reminds me of deviantart at a particular point in time. I spent a year there almost ten years ago, now.)
They make money on my content though, don’t they? selling ads to CIBC. Hm…I wouldn’t mind a piece of that. I suppose Wattpad will be free until it becomes a paid subscription website and then we can all jockey to get on the writer subscription list. Hm, again.)
If you are a person who STARTS at Wattpad, as you said, I’m not sure about creating any viable fanbase OR people willing to buy your book. In fact when I recently arrived at Wattpad and they’d started this writer experiment of authors seeking fanfunding, I heard a rather LARGE group of participants complaining how ‘Wattpad would no longer be free if they did this fanfunding idea.’
Flip flop. I feel like a fish in a very small tank. Wondering which way to set down.
Though I do seem to notice, more and more, highly read writers being showcased at Wattpad–who arrived, like six months ago and if you drill down a little further, you realize they’ve either been promoted somewhere else, already HAVE a fanbase. And THIS leads me to people like Barry Eisler going on about ‘self-publishing’ as a concept, when he’s been dealing with a trad publisher in the past.
Self-pubbing is NOT the same if you are Lawrence Block, but a lot of these new and eager writers are not cluing into this and this distresses me. And I’m experiencing a whole new breed of them on Wattpad, where the lament is: If I don’t get a three book deal before I’m 19, I’ll never make it as a writer.
Lord.
I would love to talk to you more. You sound like you’re not only reading the fine print, you’re creating it.
Thanks for the feedback.
Heather
wordwan
Carl SinclairTrish McCallanwordwan
Carl, I agree. If I have a real or imagined 24 million reader base, I should be using it for SOMETHING.
But meantime, (and I seem to walk through so much of my world, these days, in a moral state of mind) get this:
Wattpad is selling CARS on Wattpad. Are these users buying cars? I wonder. *grin*
Something odd here. They won’t buy a 99 cent book but they’ll buy a 50 thousand dollar car?
Hm. *looks at you all* *grin*
I’m around. I don’t even care if we don’t always agree; I am getting REAL tired of blogs full of sychophants who do not question the word of their blog heroes. *grin* Hoping they will toss them a crumb or two of fame or insider information, or I dunno what. I am seeking the working class truths here. I may die soon; I don’t have time to waste. *grin*
Heather, too old for this shit. But serious about making a living, in some way, as a writer. Direct me to anything you want. Thank you. I tend to go deep.